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PLAYS FOR AN IRISH THEATRE 
VOLUME I 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 



_^rt^^ 



\yHERE THERE IS 
NOTHING 



BEING VOLUME ONE OF PLAYS FOR 
AN IRISH THEATRE 



BY 

W. B. YEATS 



^^ 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1903 

All rights reserved 



THE LibRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAY n 1903 

Copyright Entry 
CLAS* -^^ XXc. No. 

^ w- ^ v 

COPY B. 



TJf 






Copyright, 1903, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and electrotyped May, 1903. 



Nortooot) ^tCBB 

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



BY THE SAME WRITER: 

THE SECRET ROSE 

THE CELTIC TWILIGHT 

POEMS 

THE WIND AMONG TH^ REEDS 

THE SHADOWY WATERS 

IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL 



DEDICATION OF VOLUMES ONE 
AND TWO OF PLAYS FOR AN 
IRISH THEATRE 

My dear Lady Gregory 

I dedicate to you two volumes of 
plays that are in part your own. 

When I was a boy I used to wander 
about at Rosses Point and Ballisodare 
listening to old songs and stories. I 
wrote down what I heard and made 
poems out of the stories or put them 
into the little chapters of the first 
edition of "The Celtic Twilight," and 
that is how I began to write in the 
Irish way. 

7 



8 DEDICATION 

Then I went to London to make my 
living, and though I spent a part of 
every year in Ireland and tried to keep 
the old life in my memory by reading 
every country tale I could find in books 
or old newspapers, I began to forget 
the true countenance of country life. 
The old tales were still alive for me 
indeed, but with a new, strange, half 
unreal life, as if in a wizard's glass, 
until at last, when I had finished "The 
Secret Rose," and was half-way through 
" The Wind Among the Reeds," a wise 
woman in her trance told me that my 
inspiration was from the moon, and that 
I should always live close to water, for 
my work was getting too full of those 
little jewelled thoughts that come from 
the sun and have no nation. 1 have no 



DEDICATION 9 

need to turn to my books of astrology 
to know that the common people are 
under the moon, or to Porphyry to 
remember the image-making power of 
the waters. Nor did I doubt the entire 
truth of what she said to me, for my 
head was full of fables that I had no 
longer the knowledge and emotion to 
write. Then you brought me with you 
to see your friends in the cottages, and 
to talk to old wise men on Slieve Echtge, 
and we gathered together, or you gath- 
ered for me, a great number of stories 
and traditional beliefs. You taught me 
to understand again, and much more 
perfectly than before, the true counte- 
nance of country life. 

One night I had a dream almost as 
distinct as a vision, of a cottage where 



10 DEDICATION 

there was well-being and firelight and 
talk of a marriage, and into the midst 
of that cottage there came an old woman 
in a long cloak. She was Ireland her- 
self, that Cathleen ni Hoolihan for whom 
so many songs have been sung and about 
whom so many stories have been told 
and for whose sake so many have gone 
to their death. I thought if I could 
write this out as a little play I could 
make others see my dream as I had 
seen it, but I could not get down out 
of that high window of dramatic verse, 
and in spite of all you had done for 
me I had not the country speech. One 
has to live among the people, like you, 
of whom an old man said in my hearing, 
" She has been a serving-maid among 
us," before one can think the thoughts 



DEDICATION 11 

of the people and speak with their 
tongue. We turned my dream into the 
little play, " Cathleen ni Hoolihan," and 
when we gave it to the little theatre in 
Dublin and found that the working 
people liked it, you helped me to put 
my other dramatic fables into speech. 
Some of these have already been acted, 
but some may not be acted for a long 
time, but all seem to me, though they 
were but a part of a summer's work, to 
have more of that countenance of coun- 
try life than anything I have done since 
I was a boy. 

W. B. YEATS 
February, 1903 



Paul Ruttledgb, a Country Gentleman 
Thomas Ruttledge, his Brother 
Mrs. Thomas Ruttledge 
Mr. Dow^ler 
Mr. Algie 



1 



_, -. I Magistrates 

Colonel Lawlet 

Mr. Joyce J 

Mr. Green, a Stipendiary Magistrate 

Sabina Silver 

Molly the Scold 

Charlie Ward 

Paddy Cockfight 

Tommy the Song 

Johneen, etc. 

Father Jerome 

Father Aloysius 

Father Colman 

Father Bartley J 

Other Friars, and a crowd of couNTiiTMES 



Tinkers 



Friars 



12 



WHERE THERE IS 
NOTHING 

ACT I 

Scene : A lawn with croquet hoops, 
garden chairs and tables. Door into 
house at left. Gate through hedge at 
hacTc. The hedge is clipped into shapes 
of farmyard fowl. Paul Ruttledge 
is clipping at the hedge in front. A 
table with toys on it. 

Thomas Ruttledge [coming out on 

steps']. Paul, are you coming in to lunch ? 

Paul Ruttledge. No ; you can en- 

13 



14 WHERE THEBE 18 NOTHING 

tertain these people very well. They 
are your friends : you understand theni. 

Thomas Ruttledge. You might as 
well come in. You have been clipping 
at that old hedge long enough. 

Paul Ruttledge. You need n't worry 
about me. I should be bored if I went 
in, and I don't want to be bored 
more than is necessary. 

Thomas Ruttledge. What is that 
creature you are clipping at now ? I 
can't make it out. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, it is a Cochin 
China fowl, an image of some of our 
neighbours, like the others. 

Thomas Ruttledge. I don't see any 
likeness to anyone. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 15 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes there is, 
if you could see their minds instead of 
their bodies. That comb now — 

Mrs. Ruttledge [coming out on steps]. 
Thomas, are you coming in ? 

Thomas Ruttledge. Yes, I 'm com- 
ing ; but Paul won't come. 

[Thomas Ruttledge goes out 

Mrs. Ruttledge. Oh ! this is non- 
sense, Paul ; you must come. All these 
men will think it so strange if you 
don't. It is nonsense to think you 
will be bored. Mr. Green is talking 
in the most interesting way. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! I know 
Green's conversation very well. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. And Mr. Joyce, 



16 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING- 

your old guardian. Thomas says he 
was always so welcome in your 
father's time, he will think it so 
queer. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! I know 
all their virtues. There 's Dowler, who 
puts away thousands a year in Con- 
sols, and Algie, who tells everybody 
all about it. Have I forgotten any- 
body ? Oh, yes ! Colonel Lawley, 
who used to lift me up by the ears, 
when I was a child, to see Africa. 
No, Georgina, I know all their virtues, 
but I 'm not coming in. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. I can't imagine 
why you won't come in and be sociable. 

Paul Ruttledge. You see I can't. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 17 

I have something to do here. I have 
to finish this comb. You see it is a 
beautiful comb ; but the wings are very 
short. The poor creature can't fly. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. But can't you 
finish that after lunch ? 

Paul Ruttledge. No, I have sworn. 

Mrs, Ruttledge. Well, I am sorry. 
You are always doing uncomfortable 
things. I must go in to the others. 
I wish you would have come. 

^She goes in 

Jerome [who has come to gate as she 
disajjfpears]. Paul, you there ! that is 
lucky. I was just going to ask , for 
you. 

Paul Ruttledge [JUnging dipjper 



18 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

mvay, and jumping up]. Oh, Father 
Jerome, I am delighted to see you. 
I haven 't seen you for ever so long. 
Come and have a talk ; or will you 
have some lunch ? 

Jerome. No, thank you ; I w^ill stay 
a minute, but I w^on't go in. 

Paul Ruttledge. That is just as 
well, for you would be bored to death. 
There has been a meeting of magis- 
trates in the village, and my brother 
has brought them all in to lunch. 

Jerome. I am collecting for the 
monastery, and my donke}^ has gone 
lame ; I have had to put it up in the 
village. I thought you might be able 
to lend me one to go on with. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 19 

Paul Ruttledge. Of course, I 'm 
delighted to lend you that or anything 
else. I '11 go round to the yard with 
you and order it. But sit down here 
first. What have you been doing all 
this time ? 

Jerome. Oh, we have been very 
busy. You know we are going to put 
up new buildings. 

Paul Ruttledge [absent-mindedly']. 
No, I did n't know that. 

Jerome. Yes, our school is increas- 
ing so much we are getting a grant for 
technical instruction. Some of the 
Fathers are learning handicrafts. Fa- 
ther Aloysius is going to study indus- 
tries in France ; but we are all busy. 



20 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

We are changing with the times, we 
are beginning to do useful things. 

Paul Ruttledge. Useful things, I 
wonder what you have begun to call 
useful things. Do you see those marks 
over there on the grass? 

Jerome. What marks? 

Paul Ruttledge. Those marks over 
there, those little marks of scratching. 

Jerome [going over to the place Paul 
Ruttledge has pointed out]. I don't 
see anything. 

Paul Ruttledge. You are getting 
blind, Jerome. Can't you see that the 
poultry have been scratching there ? 

Jerome. No, the grass is perfectly 
smooth. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 21 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, the marks 
are there, whether you see them or not ; 
for Mr, Green and Mr. Dowler and Mr. 
Algie and the rest of them run out of 
their houses when nobody is looking, 
in their real shapes, shapes like those 
on my hedge. And then they begin to 
scratch, they scratch all together, they 
don't dig but they scratch, and all the 
time their mouths keep going like that. 
^Jle holds out his hand and opens and 
shuts his Jmgers like a bird's hill. 

Jerome. Oh, Paul, you are making 
fun of me. 

Paul Ruttledge. Of course I am 
only talking in parables. I think all 
the people I meet are like farmyard 



22 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

creatures, they have forgotten their free- 
dom, their human bodies are a disguise, 
a pretence they keep up to deceive one 
another. 

Jerome [sittifig down]. What is 
wrong with you ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, nothing of 
course. You see how happy I am. I 
have a good house and a good prop- 
erty, and my brother and his charming 
wife have come to look after me. You 
see the toys of their children here and 
everywhere. What should be wrong 
with me ? 

Jerome. I know you too well not 
to see that there is something wrong 
with you. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 23 

Paul Ruttledge. There is nothing 
except that I have been thinking a 
good deal lately. 

Jerome. Perhaps your old dreams 
or visions or whatever they were have 
come back. They always made you 
restless. You ought to see more of 
your neighbours. 

Paul Ruttledge. There 's nothing 
interesting but human nature, and that 's 
in the single soul, but these neighbours 
of mine they think in flocks and roosts. 

Jerome. You are too hard on them. 
They are busy men, they have n't much 
time for thought, I daresay. 

Paul Ruttledge. That 's what I 
complain of. When I hear these people 



24 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

talking I always hear some organized 
or vested interest chirp or quack, as it 
does in the newspapers. Algie chirps. 
Even you, Jerome, though I have not 
found your armorial beast, are getting 
a little monastic ; when I have found 
it I will put it among the others. 
There is a place for it there, but the 
worst of it is that it will take so long 
getting nice and green. 

Jekome. I don't know what creature 
you could make for me. 

Paul Ruttledge. I am not sure 
yet ; I think it might be a pigeon, 
something cooing and gentle, and al- 
ways coming home to the dovecot ; not 
to the wild woods but to the dovecot. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 25 

Jerome. I wonder what crea '^re you 
yourself are like. 

Paul Ruttledge. I daresay I am 
like some creature or other, for very 
few of us are altogether men; but if I 
am, I would like to be one of the wild 
sort. You are right about my dreams. 
They have been coming back lately. 
Do you remember those strange ones I 
had at college ? 

Jerome. Those visions of pulling 
something down ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, they have 
come back to me lately. Sometimes I 
dream I am pulling down my own 
house, and sometimes it is the whole 
world that I am pulling down. ^Stand- 



26 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

ing uj)] I would like to have great iron 
claws, and to put them about the pil- 
lars, and to pull and pull till every- 
thing fell into pieces. 

Jerome. I don't see what good that 
would do you. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes it would. 
When everything was pulled down we 
would have more room to get drunk in, 
to drink contentedly out of the cup of 
lifC;, out of the drunken cup of life. 

Jerome. That is a terribly wild 
thought. I hope you don't believe all 
you say. 

Paul Ruttledge. Perhaps not. I 
only know that I want to upset every- 
thing about me. Have you not noticed 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 27 

that it is a complaint many of us have 
in this country ? and whether it comes 
from love or hate I don't know, they 
are so mixed together here. 

Jerome. I wish you would come and 
talk to our Superior. He has a perfect 
gift for giving advice. 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, we '11 go to 
the yard now. ^ffe gets tip 

Jerome. I have often thought you 
would come to the monastery yourself 
in the end. You were so much the 
most pious of us all at school. You 
would be happy in a monastery. Some- 
thing is always happening there. 

Paul Ruttledge [as they go up the 
garden]. I daresay, I daresay ; but I 



28 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

am not even sure that I am a Chris- 
tian. 

Jerome. Well, anyway, I wish that 
you would come and talk to our 
Superior. \T^^y 90 out 

Charlie Ward and Boy enter hy th» 

path beyond the hedge a/nd stand at 

gate. 

Charlie Ward. No use going up 
there, Johneen, it 's too grand a place, 
it 's a dog they might let loose on us. 
But I '11 tell you what, just slip round 
to the back door and ask do they 
want any cans mended. 

Johneen. Let you take the rabbit 
then we 're after taking out of the 
snare. I can't bring it round with me. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 29 

Charlie Ward, Faith, you can't. 
They think as bad of us taking a rab- 
bit that was fed and minded by God 
as if it was of their own rearing ; give 
it here to me. It 's hardly it will go 
in my pocket, it 's as big as a hare. 
It 's next my skin I '11 have to put it, 
or it might be noticed on me. 

[Boy ffoes out 

[Charlie Ward is struggling to 

put rahhit inside his coat when 

Paul Ruttledge comes hack. 

Paul Ruttledge. Is there anything 

I can do for you? Do you want to 

come in ? 

Charlie Ward. I 'm a tinker by 
trade, your honour. I wonder is there 



30 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

e'er a tin can the maids in the house 
might want mended or any chairs to 
be bottomed? 

Paul Ruttledge. A tinker ; where 
do you live? 

Charlie Ward. Faith, I don't"*stop 
long in any place. I go about like the 
crows ; picking up my way of living 
like themselves. 

Paul Ruttledge [opening gate]. 
Come inside here. [Charlie Ward 
hesitates] Come in, you are welcome. 

\Puts his hand on his shoulder. 
Charlie Ward tries to close 
his shirt over rabbit. 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah, you have a 
rabbit there. The keeper told me he 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 31 

had come across some snares in my 
woods. 

Charlie Ward. If he did, sir, it 
was no snare of mine he found. This 
is M'~ rabbit I bought in the town of 
Garreen early this morning. Sixpence 
I was made give for it, and to mend 
a tin can along with that. 

Paul Ruttledge [totiehing rabbit]. 
It 's warm still, however. But the day 
is hot. Never mind ; you are quite 
welcome to it. I daresay you will 
have a cheery meal of it by the road- 
side ; my dinners are often tiresome 
enough. I often wish I could change 
— look here, will you change clothes 
with me? 



32 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. Faith, I 'd swap 
soon enough if you were n't humbug- 
ging me. It 's I that would look well 
with that suit on me ! The peelers 
would all be touching their caps to me. 
You 'd see them running out for me to 
sign summonses for them. 

Paul Ruttledge. But I am not 
humbugging. I am in earnest. 

Charlie Ward. In earnest ! Then 
when I go back I '11 commit Paddy 
Cockfight to prison for hitting me yes- 
terday. 

Paul Ruttledge. You don't be- 
lieve me, but I will explain. I 'm 
dead sick of this life ; I want to get 
away ; I want to escape — as you say, 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 33 

to pick up my living like the crows 
for a while. 

Charlie Ward. To make your es- 
cape. Oh ! that 's different. ^Comi/?ig 
closer] But what is it you did ? You 
don't look like one that would be in 
trouble. But sometimes a gentleman 
gets a bit wild when he has a drop 
taken. 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, never mind. 
I will explain better while we are 
changing. Come over here to the pot- 
ting shed. Make haste, those magis- 
trates will be coming out. 

Charlie Ward. The magistrates ! 
Are they after you ? Hurry on, then ! 
Faith, they won't know you with this 



34 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

coat. [Looking at his rays] It 's a pity 
I did 'nt put on ray old one coming out 
this morning. 

\They go out tJirough the garden. 
Thomas Ruttledge comes down 
stejps from house with Colonel 
Lawley and Mr. Green. 
Mr. Green. Yes, they have made 
me President of the County Horticul- 
tural Society. My speech was quite a 
success ; it was punctuated with ap- 
plause. I said I looked upon the 
appointment not as a tribute to my 
own merits, but to their public spirit 
and to the Society, which I assured 
them had come to stay. 

Colonel Lawley. What has become 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 35 

of Paul and Father Jerome ? I 
thought I heard their voices out here, 
and now they are conspicuous by their 
absence. 

Thomas Ruttledge. He seems to 
have no friend he cares for but that 
Father Jerome. 

Mr. Green. I wish he would come 
more into touch with his fellows. 

Colonel Lawley. What a pity he 
didn 't go into the army. I wish he 
would join the militia. Every man 
should try to find some useful sphere 
of employment. 

Mr. Green. Thomas, your brother 
will never come to see me, though I 
often ask him. He would find the 



86 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

best people — people worth meeting — 
at my house. I wonder if he would 
join the Horticultural Society ? I 
know I voice the sentiments of all the 
members in saying this. I spoke to a 
number of them at the function the 
other day. 

Thomas Ruttledge. I wish he would 
join something. Joyce wants him to 
join the Masonic Lodge. It is not a 
right life for him to keep hanging 
about the place and doing nothing. 

Mr. Green. He won 't even come 
and sit on the Bench. It 's not fair to 
leave so much of the work to me. I 
ought to get all the support possible 
from local men. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 3T 

[Mrs. Ruttledge comes down steps 
with Mr. Dowler, Mr. Algie 
and Mr. Joyce. She is walk- 
ing in front. 
Mrs. Ruttledge \to Thomas Rutt- 
ledge]. Oh ! Thomas, is n't it too bad, 
Paul has lent the donkey to that friar. 
I wanted Mr. Joyce to see the children 
in their panniers. Do speak to him 
about it. 

Thomas Ruttledge. Well, the don- 
key belongs to him, and for the matter 
of that so does the house and the place. 
It would be rather hard on him not 
to be able to use things as he likes. 

Mr. Algie. What a pleasure it must 
be to Paul to have you and the little 



38 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

ones living here. He certainly owes 
you a debt of gratitude. Man was 
not born to live alone. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. Well, I think we 
have done him good. He hasn't done 
anything for years, except mope about 
the house and cut the bushes into those 
absurd shapes, and now we are try- 
ing to make him live more like other 
people. 

Colonel Lawley. He was always 
inclined to be a bit of a faddist. 

Mrs. Ruttledge [to Mr. Algie]. Do 
let me give you a lesson in croquet. 
I have learned all the new rules. [To 
Mr. Joyce] Please bring me that bas- 
ket of balls. [To Colonel Lawley] 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 39 

Will you bring me the mallets ? Yes, 
I am afraid he is a faddist. We have 
done our best for him, but he ought to 
be more with men. 

Mr. Algie. Yes, Mr. Dowler was 
just saying he ought to try and be 
made a director of the new railway. 

Colonel Lawley. The militia — the 
militia. 

Mr. Joyce. It 's a great help to a 
man to belong to a Masonic Lodge. 

Mr. Green. The Horticultural Society 
is in want of new members. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. Well, I wish he 
would join something. 



40 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Enter Paul Ruttledge in tinker's clothes^ 
ca/rrying a rabhit m his hand. Charlie 
Ward follows in Paul's clothes. All 
stand aghast. 
Mr. Joyce. Good God ! 

[Drops hasTcet. Colonel Lawley, 

who has mallets in his ham^d, at 

sight of Paul Ruttledge drops 

them, amd stands still. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. Paul ! are you out 

of your mind ? 

Thomas Ruttledge. For goodness' 
sake, Paul, don't make such a fool of 
yourself. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. What on earth has 
happened, and who on earth is that 
man ? 



WHEBE THERE IS NOTHING 41 

Paul Ruttledge [opens gate for 
tinker. To Charlie Ward]. Wait for 
me, my friend, down there by the 
cross-road. 

[Charlie Ward goes out 

Mr. Green. Has he stolen your 
clothes ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! it 's all right ; 
I have changed clothes with him. I 
am going to join the tinkers. 

All. To join the tinkers ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Life is getting 
too monotonous ; I would give it a 
little variety. [To Mr. Green] As you 
would say, it has been running in 
grooves. 

Mr. Joyce \to Mrs. Ruttledge]. 



42 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

This is only his humbugging talk ; he 
never believes what he says. 

[Paul Ruttledge goes towo/rds the 
steps. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. Surely you are not 
going into the house with those clothes ? 

Paul Ruttledge. You are quite right. 
Thomas will go in for me. [Jb Thomas 
Ruttledge] Just go to my study, will 
you, and bring me my despatch-box ; 
I want something from it before I go. 

Thomas Ruttledge. Where are you 
going to ? I wish you would tell me 
what you are at. 

Paul Ruttledge. The despatch-box 
is on the top of the bureau. 

[Thomas Ruttledge goes out 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 43 

Mr. Joyce. What does all this 
mean ? 

Paul Ruttledgb. I will explain. 
l^Sits down on the edge of iron tahle'^ 
Did you never wish to be a witch, and 
to ride through the air on a white 
horse ? 

Mr. Joyce. I can't say I ever did. 

Paul Ruttledge. Never ? Only 
think of it — to ride in the darkness 
under the stars, to make one's horse 
leap from cloud to cloud, to watch the 
sea glittering under one's feet and the 
mountain tops going by. 

Colonel Lawley. But what has 
this to do with the tinkers ? 

Paul Ruttledge. As I cannot find 



44 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

a broomstick that will turn itself into a 
white horse, I am going to turn tinker. 

Mr. Dowler. I suppose you have 
some picturesque idea about these peo- 
ple, but I assure you, you are quite 
wrong. They are nothing but poachers. 

Mr. Algie. They are nothing but 
thieves. 

Mr. Joyce. They are the worst class 
in the country. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I know that ; 
they are quite lawless. That is what 
attracts me to them. I am going to 
be irresponsible. 

Mr. Green. One cannot escape 
from responsibility by joining a set of 
vagabonds. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 45 

Paul Ruttledge. Vagabonds — that 
is it. I want to be a vagabond, a wan- 
derer. As I can't leap from cloud to 
cloud I want to wander from road to 
road. That little path there by the 
clipped hedge goes up to the highroad. 
I want to go up that path and to walk 
along tlie highroad, and so on and on 
and on, and to know all kinds of peo- 
ple. Did you ever think that the roads 
are the only things that are endless ; 
that one can walk on and on and on, 
and never be stopped by a gate or a 
wall ? They are the serpent of eternity. 
I wonder they have never been wor- 
shipped. What are the stars beside 
them ? They never meet one another. 



46 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

The roads are the only things that are 
infinite. They are all endless. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. But they must 
stop when they come to the sea ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah ! you are 
always so wise. 

Mr. Joyce. Stop talking nonsense, 
Paul, and throw away those filthy 
things. 

Paul Ruttledge. That would be 
setting cleanliness before godliness. I 
have begun the regeneration of my soul. 

Mr. Dowler. I don't see what god- 
liness has got to do with it. 

Mr. Algie. Nor I either, 

Paul Ruttledge. There was a saint 
who said, " I must rejoice without ceas- 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 47 

ing, although the world shudder at my 
joy." He did not think he could save 
his soul without it. I agree with him, 
and as 1 was discontented here, I 
thought it time to make a change. 
Like that worthy man, I must be con- 
tent to shock my friends. 

Mk. Dowler. But you had every- 
thing here you could want. 

Paul Ruttledge. That 's just it. 
You who are so wealthy, you of all 
people should understand that I want 
to get rid of all that responsibility, 
answering letters and so on. It is 
not worth the trouble of being rich if 
one has to answ^er letters. Could 
you ever understand, Georgina, that 



48 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

one gets tired of many charming 
things ? There are family responsi- 
bilities, [to Mk. Joyce] but I can see 
that you, who were my guardian, sym- 
pathize with me in that. 

Mr. Joyce. Indeed I do not. 

Mrs. Ruttledge. I should think you 
could be cheerful without ceasing to be 
a gentleman. 

Paul Ruttledge. You are thinking 
of my clothes. We must feel at ease 
with the people we live amongst. I 
shall feel at ease with the great multi- 
tude in these clothes. I am beginning 
to be a man of the world. I am the 
beggarman of all the ages — I have a 
notion Homer wrote something about me. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 49 

Mr. Dowler. He is either making 
fun of us or talking great rot. I 
can't listen to any more of this non- 
sense. I can't see why a man with 
property can't let well alone. Algie, 
are you coming my way ? 

[They both go into the house, and come 
out presently with umhrella and 
coat. 

Mr. Green. Depend upon it, he 's 
going to write a book. There was 
a man who made quite a name 
for himself by sleeping in a casual 
ward. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! no, I 'm not 
going to write about it ; if one writes 
one can do nothing else. I am going 



50 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

to express myself in life. [Jb Thomas 
RuTTLEDGE who has returned with hox\ I 
hope soon to live by the work of my 
hands, but every trade has to be learned, 
and I must take something to start 
with. [To Mrs. Ruttledge] Do you 
think you will have any kettles to 
mend when I come this way again ? 
[He has taken low from Thomas 
Ruttledge and unlocked it. 

Thomas Ruttledge. I can't make 
head or tail of what you are at. 

Colonel Lawley. What he is at is 
fads. 

Mr. Green. I don't think his motive 
is far to seek. He has some idea of 
going back to the dark ages. Rousseau 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 51 

had some idea of the same kind, but it 
did n't worli. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes ; I want to 
go back to the dark ages. 

Mr. Green. Do you want to lose all 
the world has gained since then ? 

Paul Ruttledge. What has it 
gained ? I am among those who think 
that sin and death came into the world 
the day Newton ate the apple. [To Mrs. 
Ruttledge, who is going to speaJcj I know 
you are going to tell me he only saw it 
fall. Never mind, it is all the same thing. 

Mrs. Ruttledge n>eginning to cry~\. 
Oh ! he is going mad ! 

Mr. Joyce. I 'm afraid he is really 
leaving us. 



52 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge ^who has been look- 
ing at jpapers^ tearing one or two^ etc., takes 
out a pachet of notes, which he puts in his 
hreast^. I daresay this will last me long 
enough, Thomas. I am not robbing you 
of very much. Well, good-by. ^Pats 
him gently on the shoulder^ I must n't 
forget the rabbit, it may be my dinner 
to-night ; I wonder who will skin it. 
Good-by, Colonel, I think I 've aston- 
ished you to-day. ^Slaps his shoulder^ 
That was too hard, was it ? Forgive it, 
you know I 'm a common man now. 
^Lifts his hat and goes oiit of gate. Closes 
it after him, and stands with his hands on 
it, and speaks loith the voice of a common 
manj Go on, live in your poultry-yard. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 63 

Scratch straw and cluck and cackle at 
everything that you take for a fox. l^Exit 

Mr. Joyce [j/oes to Mrs. Ruttledge, 
who has sat down and is wiping her eyes\ 
I ara very sorry for this, for his father's 
sake, but it may be as well in the end. 
If it comes to the worst, you and 
Thomas will keep up the family name 
better than he would have done. 

Mr. Dowler. He '11 find the poor 
very different from what he thinks 
when they pick his pocket. 

Colonel Lawley. To think that a 
magistrate should have such fads ! 

Mr. Green. I venture to say you 
will see him here in a very different 
state of mind in a week. 



54 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Mr. Algie [who has heen in a hrown 
studif^. He has done for himself in this 
world and the next. Why, he won't 
be asked to a single shoot if this is 
heard of. 

Thomas Ruttledge [turning from the 
gatej. Here are the children, Georgina. 
Don't say anything before the nurse. 
Mr. Green. Well, I must be off. 

[Goes in for stick 
Mr. Joyce. Just bring me out my 
coat. Green. 

[They all prepare to go. Mrs. Rutt- 
ledge has gone to open gate and 
children come in, one in a per- 
ambulator . All gather round 
them admiringly. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 55 

Mr. Joyce. Have you a kiss for god- 
father to-day ? 

Mrs. Ruttledge. The poor darlings ! 
I hope they will never know what has 
happened. 

Colonel Lawley. Thank goodness, 
they have no nonsense in their heads. 
We know where we are with them. 



Curtain 



ACT II 

Scene : By the roadside. A wall of un- 
mortared stone in, the haxikground. 
Tinkers' encampment. Men, woynen and 
children standing round. Paul Rutt- 
LEDGE standi/ng hy a jvre. 

Paul Ruttledge. What do you mean 

by " tinning " the soldering iron ? 

Charlie Ward. If the face of it is 

not well tinned it won't lift the solder. 

Show me here. 

\Takes soldering iron from Paul 

Ruttledge's hand. 

Paul Ruttledge ^sitting dovjn am,d 
66 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 57 

drawing a tin can to hijnl. Now, let me 
see how you mend this hole. It seems 
easy. I 'm sure I will be able to learn 
it as well as any of you. 

[Two tinkers come and stand over him 

Chablie Ward [pointing to one of 
thenhj. This, sir, is Tommy the Song. 
He 's the best singer we have, but the 
divil a much good he is only that. 
He 's a great warrant to snare hares. 

Tommy the Song. Is the gentleman 
going to join us ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Indeed I am, if 
you '11 let me. There 's nothing I 'd 
like better. 

Tommy the Song. But are you go- 
ing to learn the trade ? 



58 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, if you '11 
teach me. I 'm sure I '11 make a good 
tinker. Look at that now, see how 
I Ve stopped that hole already. 

Charlie Ward ^taking the can from 
him and looking at it^. If every can had 
a little hole in the middle like that, 
I think you would be able to mend 
them ; but there 's the straight hole, 
and the crooked hole, the round hole, 
the square hole, the angle hole, the 
bottom hole, the top hole, the side leak, 
the open leak, the leak-all-round, but I 
won't frighten you with the names of 
them all, only this I will say, that, 
when you 've learned to mend all the 
leakages in a can — and that should 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 69 

take you a year — you 're only in the 
first day of tlie tinker's week. 

Tommy the Song. Don't believe 
him. He 's only humbugging you. It 's 
not the hardness of the work will 
daunt you. 

Paul Ruttledge. Thank you. I 
was not believing him at all. I 'm 
quite sure I '11 be able to mend any 
can at the end of a week, but the bot- 
toming of them will take longer. I 
can see that 's not so easy. When will 
you start to teach me that, Charlie ? 

Charlie Ward ^as another tinker 
comes upj. Paddy, here 's the gentleman 
I was telling you about. He 's going 
to join us for good and all. \_To Paul 



60 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Ruttledge] Wait till we have time 
and some quiet place, and he '11 show 
you as good a cockfight as ever you 
saw. ^A wo7nan comes up^ This is his 
wife ; Molly the Scold we call her ; 
faith, she is a better fighter than any 
cock he ever had in a basket ; he 'd 
find it hard to shut the lid on her. 

Molly the Scold. The gentleman 
seems foolish. Is he all there ? 

Paddy Cockfight. Stop your chat, 
Molly, or I '11 hit you a welt. 

Charlie Ward. Keep your tongue 
quiet, Molly. If the gentleman has rea- 
sons for keeping out of the way it is n't 
for us to be questioning him. [Jb 
Paul Ruttledge] Don't mind her, 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 61 

she 's cross enough, but maybe your 
own ladies would be cross as well if 
they saw their young sons dying by 
the roadside in a little kennel of straw 
under the ass-cart the way she did ; 
from first to last. 

Paul Ruttledge. I suppose you 
have your troubles like others. But 
you seem cheerful enough. 

Charlie Ward. It is n't anything 
to fret about. Some of us go soon, 
and some travel the roads for their 
lifetime. What does it matter when 
we are under the nettles if it was with 
a short rope or a long one we w^ere 
hanged ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that is the 



62 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

way to take life. What does the 
length of our rope matter ? 

Charlie Ward. We have n't time 
to be thinking of troubles like people 
that would be shut up in a house. 
We have the wide world before us to 
make our living out of. The people of 
the whole world are begrudging us our 
living, and we make it out of them 
for all that. When they will spread 
currant cakes and feather beds before 
us, it will be time for us to sit down 
and fret. 

Tommy the Song. It 's likely you '11 
think the life too hard. Would you 
like to be passing by houses in the 
night-time, and the fire shining out of 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 63 

them, and you hardly given the loan 
of a sod to light your pipe, and the 
rain falling on you ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Why are the 
people so much against you ? 

Tommy the Song. We are not like 
themselves. It 's little we care about 
them or they about us. If their saint 
did curse us itself — 

Charlie Ward. Stop. I won't 
have you talking about that story here. 
Why would they think so much of 
the curse of one saint, and saints so 
plenty ? 

Paddy Cockfight. Where 's the 
good of a gentleman being here ? 
He -11 be breaking down on the road. 



64 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

It 's on the ass-cart he '11 be wanting to 
sit. 

Tommy the Song. Indeed, I don't 
think he '11 stand the hardship. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I '11 stand it 
well enough. 

Tommy the Song. You 're not like 
us that were reared to it. You were 
not born like us with wandering in 
the heart. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes, I have 
wandering in the heart. I got sick of 
these lighted rooms you were talking 
of just now. 

Charlie Ward. That might be so. 
It 's the dark is welcome to a man 
sometimes. 



WHEEE THERE IS NOTHING 65 

Paul Ruttledge. The dark. Yes, 
I think that is what I want. [Stands 
upj The dark, where there is nothing 
that is anything, and nobody that is 
anybody ; one can be free there, where 
there is nothing. Well, if you let me 
stay with you, I don't think you will 
hear any complaints from me. Charlie 
Ward, Paddy and the rest of you, I 
want you to understand that from this 
out I am one of yourselves. I '11 live 
as you live and do as you do. 

[JoHNEEN and other Children come 
running in. 

JoHNEEN. I was on the top of the 
bank and I seen a priest coming down 
the cross-road with his ass. It 's col- 



G6 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

lecting he is. We 're going to set our- 
selves here to beg something from him. 

Another Child [breathlessly']. And 
he has a whole lot of things on the 
ass. A whole lot of things up behind 
him. 

Another Child. O boys, O boys, 
we '11 have our dealing trick out of 
them yet. The best way '11 be — [He 
suddenly catches sight of Paul Rutt- 
ledgeJ Whist, ye divils ye, don't you 
see the new gentleman ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Speak out, boys ; 
don't be afraid of me ; I 'm one of 
yourselves now. 

Child. Oh ! but we were going to — 
But I won't tell you. \To the other Chil- 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 67 

dren] Come away here, and we '11 not 
tell him what we '11 do. 

Paul Ruttledge [to Charlie Ward], 
What are they going to do ? They 're 
putting their heads together. 

Charlie Ward. They 're going to 
put a bush across the road, and when 
the friar gets down to pull it out of 
the way they '11 snap what they can 
off the ass, and away with them. 

Paul Ruttledge. And why would n't 
they tell me that ? Am I not one of 
yourselves ? 

Charlie Ward. Ah ! it 's likely they '11 
never trust you. 

Paul Ruttledge. But they will soon 
see that I am one of themselves. 



68 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. No ; but that 's the 
very thing, you 're not one of ourselves. 
You vv^ere not born on the road, reared 
on the road, married on the road like us. 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, it 's too late 
for me to be reared on the road, but I 
don't see why I should n't marry on the 
road like you. I certainly would do it 
if it would make me one of you. 

Charlie Ward. It might make you 
one of us, there 's no doubt about that. 
It 's the only thing that would do it. 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, find a wife 
for me. 

Charlie Ward. Faith, you have n't 
far to go to find one. Paddy there 
will give you over his wife quick 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 69 

enough ; he won't make a hard bargain 
over her. 

Paul Ruttledge. But I am in 
earnest. I want to cut myself off from 
my old life. 

Charlie Ward. Oh ! I was forget- 
ting that. 

Sabina Silver [to Molly]. I wonder 
what was it he did ? I wonder had he 
the misfortune to kill anybody ? 

Charlie Ward \_calUng Sabina over']. 
Here 's a girl should make a good wife, 
Sabina Silver her name is. Her father 
is just dead ; he did n't treat her over 
well. 

Sabina Silver [coming over]. What 
is it? 



70 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. This gentleman 
wants to speak to you. I think he 's 
looking out for a wife. 

Sabina Silver \ham,gvng her head^. 
Don't be humbugging me. 

Paul Ruttledge. Indeed he 's not, 
Sabina. 

Sabina Silver. You 're only joking 
a poor girl. Sure, what would make 
you think of me at all ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Sabina, have you 
been always on the road with Charlie 
Ward and the others ? 

Sabina Silver. I have, indeed. 

Paul Ruttledge. And you 'd make 
a good tinker's wife ? 

Sabina Silver. You 're joking me. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 71 

but I would be a better wife for a 
tinker than for anyone else. 

Paul Ruttledge. Sabina, will you 
marry me ? 

Sabina Silver. Oh ! but I 'd be afraid. 

Paul Ruttledge. Why, Sabina ? 

Sabina Silver. I 'd be afraid you 'd 
beat me. 

Charlie Ward. You see her father 
used to beat her. She 's afraid of the 
look of a man now. 

Paul Ruttledge. I would not beat 
you, Sabina. How can you have got 
such an idea? 

Sabina Silver. Will you promise 
me that you won't beat me ? Will 
you swear it to me ? 



72 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Of course I will. 

Sabina Silver [to Charlie Ward]. 
Will you make him swear it ? Have n't 
you a little book in your pack ? Bring 
it out and make him swear to me on 
it, and you '11 be my witness. 

Charlie Ward. I think, Sibby, you 
need not be afraid. 

Sabina Silver. What 's your name, 
gentleman ? 

Paul Ruttledge. My name is Paul. 
Do you like it ? 

Sabina Silver. Then I won't 
marry you, Mr. Paul, till you swear 
to me upon the book that you will 
never beat me with any stick that you 
could call a stick, and that you will 
never strike a kick on me from behind. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 73 

Paul Ruttledge. Charlie, go and 
bring out that book to satisfy her. Of 
course I swear that ; it is absurd. 

[Charlie Ward brings the hook out 

of his pack. 

Paul Ruttledge. I swear, Sabina, 

that I will never strike you with any 

stick of any kind, and that I will 

never kick you. There, will that do ? 

\IIe takes hook and kisses it 

Sabina Silver. I misdoubt you. 

Kiss the book again. 

[Paul Ruttledge kisses it 

Charlie Ward. That 's all right. 

A Child \crying from a distancel. 

He 's coming now, the priest 's coming ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Then the priest 



74 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

will marry us. That comes in very 
handy. 

Charlie Ward ^scorrifullyj. A priest 
marry you, indeed he '11 do nothing of 
the kind. I hate priests and friars. 
It 's unlucky to get talking to them at 
all. You never know what trouble 
you 're in for. 

A Child ^commg up'j. That 's true, 
indeed. The last time I spoke to a 
priest it 's what he leathered me with a 
stick ; may the divil fly away with him. 

Paul Ruttledge. But somebody 
must marry us. 

Charlie Ward. Of course. You '11 
lep over the tinker's budget the usual 
way. You '11 just marry her by lepping 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 75 

over the budget the same as the rest of 

us marry. 

Paul Ruttledgb. That 's all I want 

to know. Please marry me in whatever 

is your usual way. 

Jerome enters, leading the ass. He carries 
a pig's cheek, some groceries, a string of 
onions, etc., on ths ass, which still has 
its nursery trappings. He goes up to 
Charlie Ward thinking he is Paul 

RUTTLEDGE. 

Jerome. Paul, what are you doing 
here ? 

Charlie Ward ]turnim,g'^. What do 
you want ? 

Jerome. Oh ! I 'm mistaken. I 
thought — 



76 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. I am here, Father 
Jerome, but you 're talking to the wrong 
man. 

Jerome. Good God, Paul, what has 
happened ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Nothing has hap- 
pened that need surprise you. Don't 
you remember what we talked of to- 
day ? You told me I was too much by 
myself. After you went away I thought 
I would make a change. 

Jerome. But a change like this ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Why should you 
find fault with it ? I am richer now 
than I was then. I only lent you that 
donkey then, now I give him to you. 

Jerome. What has brought you 
among such people as these ? 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 77 

Paul Ruttledge. I find them on 
the whole better company than the peo- 
ple I left a little while ago. Let me in- 
troduce you to — 

Jerome. What can you possibly gain 
by coming here ? Are you going to try 
and teach them ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! no, I am go- 
ing to learn from them. 

Jerome. What can you learn from 
them? 

Paul Ruttledge. To pick up my 
living like the crows, and to solder tin 
cans. Just give me that one I mended 
awhile ago. 

\_JIolds it out to Father Jerome 

Jerome. That is all nonsense. 



78 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. I am happy. Do 
not your saints put all opponents to the 
rout by saying they alone of all mankind 
are happy ? 

Jerome. I suppose you will not com- 
pare the happiness of these people with 
the happiness of saints ? 

Paul Ruttledge. There are all sorts 
of happiness. Some find their happiness 
like Thomas a Kempis, with a little 
book and a little cell. 

Paddy Cockfight. I would wonder 
at anybody that could be happy in a 
cell. 

Paul Ruttledge. These men fight 
in their way as your saints fought, for 
their hand is against the world. I want 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 79 

the happiness of men who fight, who are 
hit and hit back, not the fighting of men 
in red coats, that formal, soon-finished 
fighting, but the endless battle, the end- 
less battle. Tell me. Father Jerome, did 
you ever listen in the middle of the 
night ? 

Jerome. Listen for what ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Did you ever, 
when the monastery was silent, and the 
dogs had stopped barking, listen till you 
heard music ? 

Jerome. What sort of music do you 
mean ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Not the music we 
hear with these ears ^touching his ears^, 
but the music of Paradise. 



80 WHEEE THERE IS NOTHING 

Jerome. Brother Colman once said he 
heard harps in the night. 

Paul Ruttledge. Harps ! It was 
because he was shut in a cell he heard 
harps, maybe it sounds like harps in a 
cell. But the music I have heard some- 
times is made of the continual clashing 
of swords. It comes rejoicing from 
Paradise. 

Jerome. These are very wild 
thoughts. 

Tommy the Song. I often heard 
music in the forths. There is many of 
us hear it wlien we lie with our heads 
on the ground at night. 

Jerome. That was not the music of 
Paradise. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 81 

Paul Ruttledge. Why should they 
not hear that music, although it may 
not set them praying, but dancing. 

Jeeome. How can you think you 
will ever find happiness amongst their 
devils' mirth ? 

Paul Ruttledge. I have taken to 
the roads because there is a wild beast 
I would overtake, and these people are 
good snarers of beasts. They can help 
me. 

Charlie Ward. What kind of a 
wild beast is it you want ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! it 's a very 
terrible wild beast, with iron teeth and 
brazen claws that can root up spires 
and towers. 



82 WHEEE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. It 's best not to 
try and overtake a beast like that, but 
to cross running water and leave it 
after you. 

Tommy the Song. I heard one com- 
ing after me one night ; very big and 
shadowy it was, and I could hear it 
breathing. But when it came up with 
me I lifted a hazel rod that was in my 
hand, and it was gone on the moment. 

Paul Ruttledge. My wild beast is 
Laughter, the mightiest of the enemies 
of God. I will outrun it and make it 
friendly. 

Jerome. That is your old wild talk. 
Do have some sense and go back to 
your family. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 83 

Paul Ruttledge. I am never going 
back to them. I am going to live 
among these people. I will marry 
among them. 

Jerome. That is nonsense ; you will 
soon change your mind. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! no, I won't ; 
I am taking my vows as you made 
yours when you entered religion. I 
have chosen my wife ; I am going to 
marry before evening. 

Jerome. Thank God, you will have 
to stop short of that, the Church will 
never marry you. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! I am not 
going to ask the help of the Church. 
But I am to be married by what may 



84 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

be as old a ceremony as yours. What 
is it I am to do, Charlie ? 

Charlie Ward. To lep a budget, sir. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that is it, 
the budget is there by the wall. 

Jerome. I command you, in the 
name of the Holy Church and of 
the teaching you have received from 
the Church, to leave this folly, this 
degradation, this sin ! 

Paul Ruttledge. You forget, Je- 
rome, that I am on the track of the 
wild beast, and hunters in all ages 
have been a bad people to preach to. 
When I have tamed the beast, perhaps 
I will bring him to your religious 
house to be baptized. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 85 

Jerome. I will not listen to this 
profanity. [To Charlie Ward] It 
is you who have put this mad- 
ness on him as you have stolen his 
clothes ! 

Charlie Ward. Stop your chat, ye 
petticoated preacher. 

Paul Ruttledge. I think, Father 
Jerome, you had better be getting 
home. This people never gave in to 
the preaching of S. Patrick. 

Paddy Cockfight. I '11 send you 
riding home with your face to the tail 
of the ass ! 

Tommy the Song. No, stop till we 
show you that we can make as good 
curses as yourself. That you may 



86 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

never be warm in winter or cold in 
summer time — 

Charlie Ward. That 's the chat ! 
Bravo ! Let him have it. 

Tinkers. Be off ! be off out of this ! 

Molly the Scold. Now curse him, 
Tommy. 

Tommy the Song. A wide hoarseness 
on you — a high hanging to you on a 
windy day ; that shivering fever may 
stretch you nine times, and that tlie 
curses of the poor may be your best 
music, and you hiding behind the door. 

[Jerome goes out 

Molly the Scold. And you hiding 
behind the door, and squeezed between 
the hinges and tlie wall. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 87 

Other Tinkers. Squeezed between 
the hinges and the wall. 

\_They follow Jerome 

Paul Ruttledge ^crying after thein^. 
Don't harm that gentleman ; he is a 
friend of mine. 

{He goes to the wall, and stands there 
silently, looking upward. 

Sabina Silver. It was grand 
talk, indeed : I did n't understand a 
word of it. 

Paul Ruttledge. The crows are 
beginning to fly home. There is a flock 
of them high up under that cloud. I 
wonder where their nests are. 

Charlie Ward. A long way off, 
among those big trees about Tillyra Castle. 



88 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, I remember. 
I have seen them coming home there 
on a windy evening, tossing and whirl- 
ing like the sea. They may have seen 
what I am looking for, they fly so far. 
A sailor told me once that he saw a 
crow three hundred miles from land, 
but maybe he was a liar. 

Charlie Ward. Well, they fly far, 
anyway. 

Paul Ruttledge. They tell one 
another what they have seen, too. 
That is why they make so much noise. 
Maybe their news goes round the world. 
\IIe comes towards the othsrs\. I think 
they have seen my wild beast. Laughter. 
They could tell me if he has a face 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 89 

smoky from the eternal fires, and wings 
of brass and claws of brass — claws of 
brass. ^Ilolds out his haiids and moves 
them like claivsl Sabina, would you like 
to see a beast with eyes hard and cold 
and blue, like sapphires ? Would you, 
Sabina ? Well, it 's time now for the 
wedding. So what shall we get for 
the wedding party ? What would you 
like, Sabina ? 

Sabina Silver. I don't know. 

Paul Ruttledge. What do you 
say, Charlie ? A wedding cake and 
champagne. How would you like 
champagne? [Tinkers hegin to return 

Charlie Ward. It might be mid- 
dling. 



90 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. What would you 
say to a — 
One of the Boys runs in carrying a jpig's 

cheek. The rest of the Tinkers return 

with hhn. 

Boy. I knew I could do it. I told 
you I 'd have my dealing trick out of 
the priest. I took a hold of this, and 
Johneen made a snap at the onions. 

Paul Ruttledge. And he did n't catch 
you? 

Boy. He 'd want to be a lot smarter 
than he is to do that. 

Paul Ruttledge. You are a smart 
lad, anyway. What do you say we 
should have for our wedding party ? 

Boy. Are you rich ? 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 91 

Paul Ruttledge. More or less. 

Boy. I seen a whole truck full of 
cakes and bullseyes in the village below. 
Could you buy the whole of them ? 

Charlie Ward. Stop talking non- 
sense. What we want is porter. 

Paul Ruttledge. All right. How 
many public-houses are there in the 
village ? 

Tommy the Song. Twenty-four. 

Paul Ruttledge. Is there any place 
we can have barrels brought to ? 

Charlie Ward. There 's a shed near 
seems to be empty. We might go there. 

Paul Ruttledge. Then go and order 
as many barrels as we can make use 
of to be brought there. 



92 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paddy Cockfight. We will ; and 
we'll stop till we've drunk them out. 

Paul Ruttledge ^taking out money^. 
I have more money than will pay for 
that. Sabina, we '11 treat the whole 
neighbourhood in honour of our wed- 
ding. I '11 have all the public-houses 
thrown open, and free drinks going for 
a week ! 

Tinkers. Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! 

Charlie Ward. Three cheers more, 
boys. 

All. Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! 

The Boys. Now here 's the budget. 

Paul Ruttledge \taMng Sabina Sil- 
ver's hojnd'^. Now, Sabina, one, two, 

three ! 

Curtain 



ACT III 

Scene : A large shed. Some sheepskins 
hcmging up. Irons and pots for hram,d- 
ing sheep, some pitchforks, etc. Tinkers 
playing cards, Paul Ruttledge sitting 
on an upturned hasket. 

Charlie Ward. Stop that melodeon, 
now will ye, and we '11 have a taste of 
the cocks. Paul did n't see them yet 
what they can do. Where 's Tommy ? 
Where in the earthly world is Tommy 
the Song ? 

Paddy Cockfight. He 's over there 

in the corner. 

93 



94 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. What are you doing 
there, Tommy ? 

Tommy the Song. Taking a mouth- 
ful of prayers, I am. 

Charlie Ward. Praying ! did any- 
one ever hear the like of that ? Pull 
him out of the corner. 

[Paddy Cockfight pulls Tommy 
THE Song out of the Gorner. 

Charlie Ward. What is it you were 
praying for, I would like to know ? 

Tommy the Song. I was praying that 
we might all soon die. 

Paddy Cockfight. Die, is it ? 

Charlie Ward. Is it die and all 
that porter about ? Well ! you have 
done enough praying, go over there and 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 95 

look for the basket. Who was it set 
him praying, I wonder ? I am think- 
ing it is the first prayer he ever said 
in his life. 

Sabina Silver. It 's likely it was 
Paul. He 's after talking to him through 
the length of an hour. 

Paul Ruttledge. Maybe it was. 
Don't mind him. I said just now that 
when we were all dead and in heaven 
it would be a sort of drunkenness, a 
sort of ecstasy. There is a hymn about 
it, but it is in Latin. " Et calix meus 
inebrians quam. praeclarus est." How 
splendid is the cup of my drunkenness ! 

Charlie Ward. Well, that is a 
great sort of a hymn. I never thought 



96 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

there was a hymn like that, I never 
did. 

Paddy Cockfight. To think, now, 
there is a hymn like that. I must n't 
let it slip out of my mind. How 
splendid is the cup of my drunkenness, 
that 's it. 

Charlie Ward. Have you found 
that old bird of mine ? 

Tommy the Song [who has been 
sea/pching a/tnong the laskets^. Here he 
is, in the basket and a lot of things 
over it. 

Charlie Ward. Get out that new 
speckled bird of yours, Paddy, I 've 
been wanting to see how could he play 
for a week past. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 97 

Paul Ruttledge. Where do you 
get the cocks ? 

Paddy Cockfight. It was a man 
below Mullingar owned this one. The 
day I first seen him I fastened my 
two eyes on him, he preyed on my 
mind, and next night, if I did n't go 
back every foot of nine miles to put 
him in my bag. 

Paul Ruttledge. Do you pay much 
for a good fighting cock ? 

Sabina Silver ^laughs']. Do you 
pay much, Paddy ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Perhaps you don 't 
pay anything. 

Sabina Silver. I think Paddy gets 
them cheap. 



98 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. He gets them cheaper 
than another man would, anyhow. 

Paddy Cockfight. He 's the best 
cock I ever saw before or since. Be- 
lieve me, I made no mistake when I 
pitched on him. 

Tommy the Song. I don't care 
what you think of him. I '11 back th^ 
red ; it 's he has the lively eye. 

Molly the Scold. Andy Farrell had 
an old cock, and it bent double like 
himself, and all the feathers flittered out 
of it, but I hold you he 'd leather both 
your red and your speckled cock together. 
I tell ye, boys, that was the cock ! 

[Uprom'ious shouts cmd yells hea/rd 
outside. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 99 

Charlie Ward. Those free drinks 
of yours, Paul, is playing the devil 
with them. Do you hear them now 
and every roar out of them ? They 're 
putting the cocks astray, [//e takes out 
a coc¥^ Sure they think it 's thunder. 

Molly the Scold. There 's not a 
man of them outside there now but 
would be ready to knock down his 
own brother. 

Tommy the Song. He would n't 
know him to knock him down. 
They 're all blind. I never saw the 
like of it. 

Paul Ruttledge. You in here 
stood it better than that. 

Charlie Ward. When those com- 

LLofC. 



100 WHERE THERE IS NOTHINQ 

mon men drink it 's what they fall 
down. They have n't the heads. 
They 're not like us that have to keep 
heads and heels on us. 

Paddy Cockfight. It 's well we 
kept them out of this, or they 'd be 
lying on the floor now, and there 'd 
be no place for my poor bird to show 
himself off. Look at him now ! Is n't 
he the beauty ! ^Takes out the cock 

Charlie Ward. Now boys, settle 
the place, put over those barrels out of 
that. [They push harrels into a row at 
haeli\ Paul, you sit on the bin the 
way you '11 get a good view. 

\A loud knock at the door. An 
authoritative voice outside. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 101 

Voice. Open this door. 

Paddy Cockfight. That's Green, 
the Removable ; I know his voice well. 

Chaelie Wakd. Clear away, boys. 
Back with those cocks. There, throw 
tliat sack over the baskets. Quick, 
will ye ! 

Colonel Lawley ^outsidsj. Open 
this door at once. 

Mr. Green ^outsidej. I insist on 
this door being opened. 

Molly the Scold. What do they 
want at all. I wish we did n't come 
into a place with no back door to it. 

Paul Ruttledge. There 's nothing 
to be afraid of. Open the door, 
Charlie. [Charlie Ward opens the door 



102 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Enter Me. Green, Colonel Lawley, 

Mr. Dowler, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Algie 

(md Thomas Ruttledge. 

Paddy Cockfight. All J.P.'s ; I 
have looked at everyone of them from 
the dock ! 

Mr. Green. Mr. Ruttledge, this is 
very sad. 

Mr. Joyce. This is a disgraceful 
business, Paul ; the vv^hole countryside is 
demoralized. There is not a man who 
has come to sensible years w^ho is not 
drunk. 

Mr. Dowler. This is a flagrant vio- 
lation of all propriety. Society is 
shaken to its roots. My own servants 
have been led astray by the free drinks 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 103 

that are being given in the village. My 
butler, who has been with me for seven 
years, has not been seen for the last 
two days. 

Paul Ruttledge. I am sure you 
will echo Mr. Dowler, Algie. 

Mr. Algie. Indeed I do. I indorse 
his sentiments completely. There has 
not been a stroke of work done for the 
last week. The hay is lying in ridges 
where it has been cut, there is not a 
man to be found to water the cattle. 
It is impossible to get as much as a 
horse shod in the village. 

Paul Ruttledge. I think you have 
something to say. Colonel Lawley ? 

Colonel Lawley. I have undoubt- 



104 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

edly. I want to know when law and 
order are to be re-established. The 
police have been quite unable to cope 
with the disorder. Some of them have 
themselves got drunk. If my advice 
had been taken the military would have 
been called in. 

Mr. Green. The military are not 
indispensable on occasions like the pres- 
ent. There are plenty of police coming 
now. We have wired to Dublin for 
them; they will be here by the four 
o'clock train. 

Paul Ruttledge [gets down from Ms 
hinj. But you have not told me what 
you have come here for. Is there 
anything I can do for you? 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 105 

Thomas Ruttledge. Won't you 
come home, Paul ? The children have 
been asking for you, and we don't 
know what to say. 

Mr. Green. We have come to re- 
quest you to go to the public-houses, 
to stop the free drinks, to send the 
people back to their work. As for 
those tinkers, the law will deal with 
them when the police arrive. 

Thomas Ruttledge. Oh, Paul, why 
have you upset the place like this ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, I wanted 
to give a little pleasure to my fellow- 
creatures. 

Mr. Dowler. This seems rather a 
low form of pleasure. 



106 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. I daresay it seems 
to you a little violent. But the poor 
have very few hours in which to enjoy 
themselves ; they must take their pleas- 
ure raw ; they have n't the time to 
cook it. 

Mr. Algie. But drunkenness! 

Paul Ruttledge ^piUting his hand 
on the shoulders of two of the magistrates].. 
Have we not tried sobriety ? Do you 
like it ? I found it very dull. [^ 
yell from outside\ There is not one of 
those people outside but thinks that he 
is a king, that he is riding the wind. 
There is not one of them that would 
not hit the world a slap in the face. 
Some poet has written that exuberance 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 107 

is beauty, and that the roadway of ex- 
cess leads to the palace of wisdom. 
But I forgot — you do not read the poets. 

Mr. Dowler. What we want to 
know is, are you going to send the 
people back to their work ? 

Paul Ruttledgb. Oh, work is such 
a little thing in comparison with ex- 
perience. Think what it is to them to 
have their imagination like a blazing 
tar-barrel for a whole week. Work 
could never bring them such blessed- 
ness as that. 

Mr. Dowler. Everyone knows there 
is no more valuable blessing than work. 

Mr. Algie. Idleness is the curse of 
this country. 



108 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. I am prejudiced, 
for I have always been an idler. 
Doubtless, the poor must work. It 
was, no doubt, of them you were speak- 
ing. Yet, does n't the Church say, 
does n't it describe heaven as a place 
where saints and angels only sing and 
hold branches and wander about hand 
in hand. That must be changed. We 
must teach the poor to think work a 
thing fit for heaven, a blessed thing. 
I '11 tell you what we '11 do, Dowler. 
Will you subscribe, and you, and you, 
and we'll send lecturers about with 
magic lanterns showing heaven as it 
should be, the saints with spades and 
hammers in their hands and everybody 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 109 

working. The poor might learn to 
think more of work then. Will you 
join in that scheme, Dowler ? 

Mr. Dowler. I tliink you 'd better 
leave these subjects alone. It is obvi- 
ous you have cut yourself off from both 
religion and society. 

Mr. Green. The world could not 
go on without work. 

Paul Ruttledge. The world could 
not go on without work ! The world 
could not go on without work ! I 
must think about it. ^Gets up on li?i] 
Why should the world go on ? Per- 
haps the Christian teacher came to 
bring it to an end. Let us send mes- 
sengers everywhere to tell the people 



110 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

to stop working, and then the world 
may come to an end. He spoke of the 
world, the flesh and the deviL Per- 
haps it would be a good thing to end 
these one by one. 

Colonel Lawley. Come away out 
of this. He has gone mad. 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah ! I thought 
that would scare them. 

Mr. Joyce. I wish, Paul, you 
would come back and live like a 
Christian. 

Paul Ruttledge. Like a Christian ? 

Mr. Joyce. Come away, there 's no 
use stopping here any longer. 

Paul Ruttledge ^ste?mli/'j. Wait, I 
have something to say to that. [To 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 111 

Charlie Ward] Do not let anyone 
leave this place. 

[Tinkers close together at the door 

Mr. Green [to Tinkers]. This is 
nonsense. Let me through. 

[Tinker spreads out his arms he- 
fore him. 

Paul Ruttledge. You have come 
into a different kingdom now ; the old 
kingdom of the people of the roads, 
the houseless people. We call ourselves 
tinkers, and you are going to put us 
on our trial if you can. You call 
yourselves Christians, and w^e will put 
you on your trial first. I will put the 
world on its trial, and myself of yes- 
terday. [To a Bo}^] Run out, Johneen, 



112 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

keep a watch, and tell us when the 
train is coming. Sabina, that rope ; 
we will set these gentlemen on those 
barrels. [Tinkers take hold of them 

Colonel Lawley, Keep your hands 
off me, you drunken scoundrel ! 

^Strikes at Charlie Ward, hut 
Tinkers seize his arms behind 

Paul Ruttledge. Tie all their 
hands behind them. 

Mr. Dowler. We 'd better give in, 
there 's no saying how many more of 
them there are. 

Mr. Algie. I '11 be quiet, the odds 
are* too great against us. 

Mr. Green. The police will soon be 
here ; we may as well stay quietly. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 113 

Paddy Cockfight. Here, give it to 
me, I '11 put a good twist in it. Don't 
be afraid, sir, it 's not about your neck 
I 'm putting it — There now, sit 
quiet and easy, and you won't feel it 
at all. 

Paul Ruttledge. Are all their hands 
tied ? Now then, heave them up on to 
the barrels. 

^Slight scuffle, during which all a/re 
put on the harrels in a semicircle 

Paul Ruttledge, Ah ! yes, you are 
on my barrels now ; last time I saw 
you you were on your own dunghill. 
Let me see, is there anyone here who 
can write ? 

Charlie Ward. Nobody. 



114 WHEUE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Never mind, you 
can keep count on your fingers. The 
rest must sit down and behave them- 
selves as befits a court. They say they 
are living like Christians. Let us see. 

Thomas Ruttledge. Oh, Paul, don't 
make such a fool of yourself. 

Paul Ruttledge. The point is not 
wisdom or folly, but the Christian life. 

Mr. Dowler. Don't answer him, 
Thomas. Let us preserve our dignity. 

Mr. Algie. Yes, let us keep a dig- 
nified attitude — we won't answer these 
ruffians at all. 

. Paul Ruttledge. Respect the court ! 
^Turns to Colonel Lawley] You have 
served your Queen and country in the 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 115 

iield, and now you are a colonel of 
militia. 

Colonel Lawley. Well, what is 
there to be ashamed of in that ? An- 
swer me that, now. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yet there is an 
old saying about turning the other 
cheek, an old saying, a saying so impos- 
sible that the world has never been 
able to get it out of its mind. You 
have helped to enlist men for the 
army, I think ? Some of them have 
fought in the late war, and you have 
even sent some of your own militia 
there. 

Colonel Lawley. If I did I 'm 
proud of it. 



116 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Did they think it 
was a just war ? 

Colonel Lawley. That was not 
their business. They had taken the 
Queen's pay. They would have dis- 
graced themselves if they had not gone. 

Paul Ruttledge. Is it not the doc- 
trine of your Christian Church, of your 
Catholic Church, that he who fights in 
an unjust war, knowing it to be unjust, 
loses his own soul ? 

Colonel Lawley. I should like to 
know what would happen to the coun- 
try if there were n't soldiers to pro- 
tect it. 

Paul Ruttledge. We are not dis- 
cussing the country, we are discussing 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 117 

the Christian life. Has this gentleman 
lived the Christian life ? 

All the Tinkers. He has not ! 

Paddy Cockfight. His sergeant tried 
to enlist me, giving me a shilling, and 
I drunk. 

Tommy the Song [singing^ 

She bid me take love easy, as the 
leaves grow on the tree, 

But I, being young and foolish, with 
her would not agree. 

Charlie Ward. Stop your mouth, 
Tommy. This is not your show. [To 
Paul Ruttledge] Are you going to 
put a fine on the Colonel ? If so I 'd 
like his cloak. 



118 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. Now we '11 try 
Mr. Dowler, the rich man. ^Holds up 
his jmgers in a ring~^ Mr. Dowler, could 
you go through this ? 

Mr. Algie. Don't answer him, 
Dowler ; he 's going beyond all bounds. 

Paul Ruttledge. I was a rich man 
and I could not, and yet I am some- 
thing smaller than a camel, and this is 
something larger than a needle's eye. 

Mr. Joyce. Don't answer this pro- 
fanity. 

Charlie Ward. But what about 
the cloak ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh ! go and take it. 
[Charlie Ward goes and takes cloak 
off the Colonel. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 119 

Colonel Lawley. You drunken ras- 
cal, I '11 see you in the dock for 
this. 

Mr. Joyce. You 're encouraging rob- 
bery now. 

Paul Ruttledge. Remember the 
commandment, " Give to him that ask- 
eth thee " ; and the hard commandment 
goes even farther, " Him that taketh thy 
cloak forbid not to take thy coat also." 
^Holding out his ragsl Have I not 
shown you what Mr. Green would call 
a shining example. Charlie, ask them 
all for their coats. 

Charlie Ward. I will, and their 
boots, too. 

All the Tinkers ^uproariousl(/l. 



120 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Give me your coat ; I '11 have your 
boots, etc. 

Mr. Green. Wait till the police 
come. I '11 turn the tables on you ; 
you may all expect hard labour for 
this. 

Paul Ruttledge [to the Tinkers]. 
Stand back, the trial is not over. Mr. 
Green, these friends of yours have been 
convicted of breaking the doctrine they 
boast of. They do not love their ene- 
mies ; they do not give to every man 
that asks of them. Some of them, Mr. 
Dowler, for instance, lay up treasures 
upon earth ; they ask their goods again 
of those who have taken them away. 
But you, Mr. Green, are the worst of 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 121 

all. They break the Law of Christ for 
their own pleasure, but you take pay 
for breaking it. When their goods are 
taken away you condemn the taker ; 
when they are smitten on one cheek 
you punish the smiter. You encourage 
them in their breaking of the Law of 
Christ. 

Tommy the Song. He does, indeed. 
He gave me two months for snaring 
rabbits. 

Paddy Cockfight. He tried to put 
a fine on me for a cock I had, and 
he took five shillings off Molly for 
hitting a man. 

Paul Ruttledge. Your evidence is 
not wanted. His own words are 



122 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

enough. [Stretching out his arms^ Have 
any of these gentlemen been living the 
Christian life ? 

All. They have not. 

JoHNEEN ^commg inj. Ye 'd best 
clear off now. I see the train coming 
in to the station. 

Paddy Cockfight. The police will 
find plenty to do in the village before 
they come to us ; that 's one good job. 

Paul Ruttledge. One moment. I 
have done trying the world I have 
left. You have accused me of up- 
setting order by my free drinks, and I 
have showed you that there is a more 
dreadful fermentation in the Sermon on 
the Mount than in my beer-barrels. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 123 

Christ thought it in the irresponsibility 
of His omnipotence. \_Gettmg from his 
binj Charlie, give me that cloak. 

VHe flings it hack 
Charlie Ward. Are n't you going 
to punish them anyway ? 

Paul Ruttledge. No, no, from this 

out I would punish nobody but myself. 

\8ome of the Tinkers have gone out 

Charlie Ward. We 'd best be off 

while we can. Come along, Paul, 

Sibby 's gone. 

\As they go out Tommy the Song 
is singing^ 

Down by the sally garden my love 
and I did stand, 



124 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

And on my leaning shoulder she laid 

her milk-white hand ; 
She bade me take love easy, as the 

leaves grow on the tree, 
But I, being young and foolish, with 

her would not agree. 

[^AU go out except Paul Ruttledge 
Paul Ruttledge. Well, good-by, 
Thomas ; I don't suppose I '11 see you 
again. Use all I have ; spend it on 
your children ; I '11 never want it. \To 
the others^ Will you come and join us ? 
We will find rags for you all. Per- 
haps you will give up that dream 
that is fading from you, and come 
among the blind, homeless people ; 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 125 

put off the threadbare clothes of the 
Apostles and run naked for a while. 

[/« going out 

Thomas Ruttledge. You have noth- 
ing against me, have you, Paul ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes, I have ; 
a little that I have said against all 
these, and a worse thing than all, 
though it is not in the book. 

Thomas Ruttledge. What is it ? 

Paul Ruttledge [lookmg hack from 
the threshold^. You have begotten fools. 

Curtain 



ACT IV 

Scene 1 : Oreat door m the middle of 
the stage under a stone cross, with 
flights of steps leading to door. Miter 
Charlie Ward, Paddy Cockfight, 
Tommy the Song, and Sabina Sil- 
ver. They are sujpporting Paul 
RuTTLEDGE, who is lent and limping. 

Charlie Ward. We must leave you 
here. The monks will take you in. 
We 're very sorry, Paul. It 's a heart- 
scald to us to leave you and you know 
that, but what can we do ? 

[They lead Paul Ruttledge to steps 

126 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 127 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah ! that was a 
bad stitch ! [(r««^s] Take care now ; 
put me down gently. 

Sabina Silver. Oh ! can't we keep 
him with us anyway ; he '11 find no one 
to care him as well as myself. 

Tommy the Song. What way can 
you care him, Sibby ? It 's no way to 
have him lying out on the roadside 
under guano bags, like ourselves, and 
the rain coming down on him like it 
did last night. It 's in hospital he '11 
be for the next month. 

Charlie Ward. We 'd never leave 
you if you could even walk. If we 
have to give you to the monks itself, 
we 'd keep round the place to encour- 



128 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

age you, only for the last business. 
We '11 have to put two counties at 
least between us and Gortmore after 
what we 're after doing. 

Paul Ruttledge. Never mind, boys, 
they '11 never insult a tinker again in 
Gortmore as long as the town 's a 
town. 

Chablie Ward. Dear knows ! it 
breaks my heart to think of the fine 
times we had of it since you joined 
us. Why the months seemed like days. 
And all the fine sprees we had to- 
gether ! Now you 're gone from us we 
might as well be jailed at once. 

Paddy Cockfight. And how you 
took to the cocks ! I believe you were 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 129 

a better judge than myself. No one 
but you would ever have fancied that 
black-winged cock — and he never met 
his match. 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah ! well, I 'm 
doubled up now^ like that old cock of 
Andy FarrelPs. 

Paddy Cockfight. No, but you 
w^ere the best warrant to set a snare 
that ever I came across. 

Paul Ruttledge [sitting down with 
difficulty on the steps^. Yes ; it was a 
grand time we had, and I would n't 
take back a day of it ; but it 's over 
now ; I 've hit my ribs against the earth 
and they 're aching. 

Sabina Silver. Oh ! Paul, Paul, is 



130 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

it to leave you we must ? And you 
never once struck a kick or a blow on 
me all this time, not even and you in 
pain with the rheumatism. 

[A clock strikes inside 

Charlie Ward. There 's the clock 
striking. The monks will be getting 
up. We 'd best be off after the others. 
I hear some noise inside ; they 'd best 
not catch us here. I '11 stop and pull 
the bell. Be off with you, boys ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Good-by, Sabina. 
Don't cry ! you '11 get another husband. 

Sabina Silver. I '11 never lep the 
budget with another man ; I swear it. 

Paul Ruttledge. Good-by, Paddy. 
Good-by, Tommy. My mother Earth 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 131 

will have none of me and I will go 
look for my father that is in heaven. 

Paddy Cockfight. Come along, 
Sibby. rTakes her limid and hurries off 

Charlie Ward \rings heir\. Are they 
sure to let you in, Paul ? Have you 
got your story ready ? 

Paul Ruttledge. No fear, they 
won't refuse a sick man. No one 
knows me but Father Jerome, and he 
won't tell on me. 

Charlie Ward. There 's a step in- 
side. I '11 cut for it. 

\He goes out. Paul is left sitting on 
steps. 



132 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Scene 2 : The cryjpt under the monastery 
church. A small larred window high 
up in the wall, through which the cold 
daaon is breaking. Altar in a niche at 
the hack of stage / there are seven un- 
lighted candles on the altar. A little 
ha/nging lamp near the altar. Paul 
RuTTLEDGE is Vying on the altar steps. 
Friars are dancing slowly before hhn 
in the dim light. Father Aloysius 
is leaning agai/nst a pillar. 
Some Friars come in carrying lanterns. 

First Friar. What are they doing? 
Dancing ? 

Second Friar. I told you they 
were dancing, and you would not be- 
lieve me. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 133 

First Friar. What on earth are 
they doing it for? 

Third Friar. I heard them saying 
Father Paul told them to do it if they 
ever found him in a trance again. He 
told them it was a kind of prayer 
and would bring joy down out of 
heaven, and make it easier for him to 
preach. 

Second Friar. How still he is 
lying ; you would nearly think him to 
be dead. 

A Friar. It is just a twelvemonth 
to-day since he was in a trance like 
this. 

Second Friar. That was the time 
he gave his great preaching. I can't 



134 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

blame those that went with him, for 
he all but persuaded me. 

First Friab. They think he is 
going to preach again when he awakes, 
that 's why they are dancing. When 
he wakes one of them will go and 
call the others. 

Third Friar. We were all in 
danger when one so pious was led 
away. It 's five years he has been 
with us now, and no one ever went 
so quickly from lay brother to novice, 
and novice to friar. 

First Friar. The way he fasted 
too ! The Superior bade me watch 
him at meal times for fear he should 
starve himself. 



WHEBE THERE IS NOTHING 185 

Third Fkiar. He thought a great 
deal of Brother Paul then, but he isn't 
so well pleased with him now. 

Second Friar. What is Father 
Aloysius doing there ? standing so quiet 
and his eyes shut. 

Third Friar. He is meditating. 
Did n't you hear Brother Paul give 
meditations of his own ? 

First Friar. Colman was telling 
me about that. He gives them a joy- 
ful thought to fix their minds on. 
They must not let their minds stray to 
anything else. They must follow that 
single thought and put everything else 
behind them. 

Third Friar. Colman fainted the 



136 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

other day when he was at his medita- 
tion. He says it is a great labour to 
follow one thought always. 

Second Friar. What do they do it 
for? 

First Friar. To escape what they 
call the wandering of nature. They say 
it was in the trance Brother Paul got 
the knowledge of it. He says that if a 
man can only keep his mind on the 
one high thought, he gets out of time 
into eternity, and learns the truth for 
itself. 

Third Friar. He calls that getting 
above law and number, and becoming 
king and priest in one's own house. 

Second Friar. A nice state of things 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 137 

it would be if every man was his own 
priest and his own king. 

First Friar. I wonder will he wake 
soon. I thought I saw him stir just now. 
Father Aloysius, will he wake soon ? 

Aloysius. What did you say ? 

First Friar. Will he wake soon ? 

Aloysius. Yes, yes, he will wake very 
soon now. 

Second Friar. What are they going 
to do now ; are they going to dance ? 

Third Friar. He was too patient 
with him. He would have made short 
work of any of us if we had gone so far. 

First Dancer. Nam, et si ambula- 
vero in medio umbrae mortis, 
Non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es. 



138 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

First Friar. They are singing the 
twenty-second Psalm. What madness 
to sing ! 

Second Dancer. Virga tua, et bacu- 
lus tuus. 
Ipsa me consolata sunt. 

First Dancer. Parasti in conspectu 
meo mensam 
Adversus eos qui tribulant me. 

Second Dancer. Inpinguasti in oleo 
caput meum ; 
Et calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus 
est. 
Second Friar. Here is the Superior. 
There '11 be bad work now. 
Superior comes in. 
Superior \ holding up his ha/nd~^. Si- 
lence ! {They stop singing and dancing 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 139 

First Dancer. It 's the Superior. 

Superior. Stop this blasphemy ! Leave 
the chapel at once ! I will deal with you 
by and by. ^Do/ncing Friars go out 

Jerome ^stooping over Paul]. He has 
not wakened from the trance yet. 

Aloysius \who still remains perfectly 
motionless^. Not yet, but he will soon 
awake — Paul ! 

Superior. It is hardly worth while 
being angry with those poor fools whose 
heads he has turned with his talk. 
\ Stoops and touches his handl It is quite 
rigid. I will wait till he is alive again, 
there is no use wasting words on a dead 
body. 

Jerome ^stooping over himy His eyes 



140 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

are beginning to quiver. Let me be the 
first to speak to him. He may say 
some wild things when he awakes, not 
knowing who is before him. 

SuPERiOK. He must not preach. I 
must have his submission at once. 

Jerome. I will do all I can with 
him. He is most likely to listen to me. 
I was once his close friend. 

Superior. Speak to him if you like, 
but entire submission is the only thing 
I will accept. [Tb the other Monks] 
Come with me, we will leave Father 
Jerome here to speak to him. [Superior 
and Friars go to the doorj Such dese- 
cration, such blasphemy. Remember, 
Father Jerome, entire submission, and at 
once. [Superior and Friars go out 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 141 

Jerome. Where are the rest of his 
friends, Father Aloysius ? Bartley and 
Colman ought to be with him when he 
is like this. 

Aloysius. They are resting, because, 
when he has given his message, they 
may never be able to rest again. 

Jerome [be7idi7ig over hiTnl. My poor 
Paul, this will wear him out ; see how 
thin he has grown ! 

Aloysius. He is hard upon his body. 
He does not care what happens to his 
body. 

Jerome. He was like this when he 
was a boy ; some wild thought would 
come on him, and he would not know 
day from night, he would forget even 



142 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

to eat. It is a great pity he was so 
hard to himself ; it is a pity he had 
not always someone to look after him. 

Aloysius. God is taking care of him ; 
what could men like us do for him ? 
We cannot help him, it is he who 
helps us. 

Jerome [going on Ms knee mid taking 
his ha?id~\. He is awaking. Help me to 
lift him up. [They lift him into a chair 

Aloysius. I will go and call the 
others now. 

Jerome. Do not let them come for a 
little time, I must speak to him first. 

Aloysius. I cannot keep them away 
long. One cannot know when the words 
may be put in his mouth. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 143 

[Aloysius goes out. Jerome stands 
hy Paul Ruttledge, holdvng 
his hand. 

Paul Ruttledge Raising his head~\. 
Ah, you are there, Jerome. I am glad 
you are there. I could not get up to 
drive away the mouse that was eating 
the' wax that dropped from the candles. 
Have you driven it away ? 

Jerome. It is not evening now. It 
is almost morning. You were on your 
knees praying for a great many hours, 
and then I think you fainted. 

Paul Ruttledge. I don't think I 
was praying. I was among people, a 
great many people, and it was very 
bright — I will remember presently. 



144 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Jerome. Do not try to remember. 
You are tired, you must be weak, you 
must come and have food and rest. 

Paul Ruttledge. I do not think 
I can rest. I think there is something 
else I have to do, I forget what it is. 

Jerome. I am afraid you are think- 
ing of preaching again. You must not 
preach. The Superior says you must 
not. He is very angry ; I have never 
seen him so angry. He will not allow 
you to preach again. 

Paul Ruttledge. Did I ever preach ? 

Jerome. Yes. It was in the garden 
you got the trance last time. We found 
you like this, and we lifted you to the 
bench under the yew tree, and then 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 145 

you began to speak. You spoke about 
getting out of the body while still 
alive, about getting away from law and 
number. All the friars came to listen to 
you. We had never heard such preach- 
ing before, but it was very like heresy. 
Paul Ruttledge [getting up']. Je- 
rome, Jerome, I remember now where 
I was. I was in a great round place, 
and a great crowd of things came round 
me. I could n't see them very clearly 
for a time, but some of them struck 
me with their feet, hard feet like hoofs, 
and soft cat-like feet ; and some pecked 
me, and some bit me, and some clawed 
me. There were all sorts of beasts 
and birds as far as I could see. 



146 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Jerome. Were they devils, Paul, were 
they the deadly sins ? 

Paul Ruttledge. I don't know, but 
I thought, and I don't know how the 
thought came to me, that they were the 
part of mankind that is not human ; the 
part that builds up the things that keep 
the soul from God. 

Jerome. That was a terrible vision. 

Paul Ruttledge. I struggled and I 
struggled with them, and they heaped 
themselves over me till I was unable to 
move hand or foot : and that went on 
for a long, long time. 

Jerome [crossing himself ^ God have 
mercy on us. 

Paul Ruttledge. Then suddenly 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 147 

there came a bright light, and all in a 
minute the beasts were gone, and I saw 
a great many angels riding upon uni- 
corns, white angels on white unicorns. 
They stood all round me, and they cried 
out, " Brother Paul, go and preach ; get 
up and preach. Brother Paul." And 
then they laughed aloud, and the uni- 
corns trampled the ground as though the 
world were already falling in pieces. 

Jerome. It was only a dream. 
Come with me. You will forget it 
when you have had food and rest. 

Paul Ruttledge ^looking at his arm^. 
It was there one of them clawed me ; 
one that looked at me with great heavy 
eyes. 



148 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Jerome. The Superior has been here ; 
try and listen to me. He says you must 
not preach. 

Paul Ruttledge. Great heavy eyes 
and hard sharp claws. 

Jerome [putti7ig his hands on his 
shoulders^. You must awake from this. 
You must remember where you are. 
You are under rules. You must not 
break the rules you are under. The 
brothers will be coming in to hear you, 
you must not speak to them. The 
Superior has forbidden it. 

Paul Ruttledge ^touching Jerome's 
hcmd'\. I have always been a great 
trouble to you. 

Jerome. You must go and submit to 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 149 

the Superior. Go and make your sub- 
mission now, for my sake. Think of 
what I have done for your sake. Re- 
member how I brought you in, and an- 
swered for you when you came here. I 
did not tell about that wild business. 
I have done penance for that deceit. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, you have al- 
ways been good to me, but do not ask 
me this. I have had other orders. 

Jerome. Last time you preached the 
whole monastery was upset. The Friars 
began to laugh suddenly in the middle 
of the night. 

Paul Ruttledge. If I have been given 
certain truths to tell, I must tell them 
at once before they slip away from me. 



150 WHERE THESE IS NOTHING 

Jerome. I cannot understand your 
ideas ; you tell them impossible things. 
Things that are against the order of 
nature. 

Paul Ruttledge. I have learned 
that one needs a religion so wholly 
supernatural, that is so opposed to the 
order of nature that the world can never 
capture it. 

[So7ne Friars cotne in. They carry 
green hranches in their hands. 

Paul Ruttledge. They are coming. 
Will you stay and listen ? 

Jerome. I must not stay. I must 
not listen. 

Paul Ruttledge. Help me over to 
the candles. I am weak, my knees are 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 151 

weak. I shall be strong when the 
words come. I shall be able to teach. 
[He lights a taper at the hanging lamp and 
tries to light the candles with a shaking 
hand. Jerome takes the taper from him 
and lights the candles^ Why are you 
crying, Jerome ? 

Jerome. Because we that were 
friends are separated now. We shall 
never be together again. 

Paul Ruttledge. Never again ? 
The love of God is a very terrible 
thing. 

Jerome. I have done with meddling. 
I must leave you to authority now. I 
must tell the Superior you will not 
obey. [jSe goes out 



152 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

First Friar. Father Jerome had a 
very dark look going out. 

Second Friar. He was shut up 
with the Superior this morning. I 
wonder what they were talking about. 

First" Friar. I wonder if the Supe- 
rior will mind our taking the branches. 
They are only cut on Palm Sunday 
other years. What will he tell us, I 
wonder? It seems as if he was going 
to tell us how to do some great thing. 
Do you think he will teach us to do 
cures like the friars used at Esker? 

Second Friar. Those were great 
cures they did there, and they were not 
strange men, but just the same as our- 
selves. I heard of a man went to 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 153 

them dying on a cart, and he walked 
twenty miles home to Burren holding 
the horse's head. 

First Friar. Maybe we '11 be able 
to see visions the same as were seen at 
Knock. It 's a great wonder all that 
was seen and all that was done there. 

Third Friar. I was there one time, 
and the whole place was full of 
crutches that had been thrown away 
by people that were cured. There was 
a silver crutch there some rich man 
from America had sent as an offering 
after getting his cure. Speak to him, 
Brother Colman. He seems to be in 
some sort of a dream. Ask if he is 
going to speak to us now. 



154 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

CoLMAN. We are all here, Brother 
Paul. 

Paul Ruttlbdge. Have you all been 
through your meditations ? 

[They all gather round him 

Bartley. We have all tried ; we 
have done our best ; but it is hard to 
keep our mind on the one thing for 
long. 

Paul Ruttledge. " He ascended 
into heaven." Have you meditated 
upon that ? Did you reject all earthly 
images that came into your mind till 
the light began to gather? 

Third Friar. I could not fix my 
mind well. When I put out one 
thought others came rushing in. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 155 

CoLMAN. When I was meditating, 
the inside of my head suddenly became 
all on fire. 

Aloysius. While I was meditating, 
I felt a spout of fire going up between 
my shoulders. 

Paul Ruttledge. That is the way 
it begins. You are ready now to hear 
the truth. Now I can give you the 
message that has come to me. Stand 
here at either side of the altar. 
Brother Colman, come beside me here. 
Lay down your palm branches before 
this altar ; you have brought them as 
a sign that the walls are beginning to 
be broken up, that we are going back 
to the joy of the green earth. \_Goe8 



156 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Up to the candles and s]peaks\ Et calix 
meus inebrians quam praeclarus est. 
For a long time after their making 
men and women wandered here and 
there, half blind from the drunkenness 
of Eternity ; they had not yet forgot- 
ten that the green Earth was the Love 
of God, and that all Life was the Will 
of God, and so they wept and laughed 
and hated according to the impulse of 
their hearts. ^He takes up the green 
houghs and presses them to his hreast~^ 
They gathered the green Earth to their 
breasts and their lips, as I gather these 
boughs to mine, in what they believed 
would be an eternal kiss. 

\IIe remains a little while silent 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 157 

Second Friar. I see a light about 
his head. 

Third Friar. I wonder if he has 
seen God. 

Paul Ruttledge. It was then that 
the temptation began. Not only the 
Serpent who goes upon his belly, but 
all the animal spirits that have loved 
things better than life, came out of 
their holes and began to whisper. The 
men and women listened to them, and 
because v/hen they had lived according 
to the joyful Will of God in mother 
wit and natural kindness, they some- 
times did one another an injury, they 
thought that it would be better to be 
safe than . to be blessed, they made the 



158 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Laws. The Laws were the first sin. 
They were the first mouthful of the 
apple, the moment man had made them 
he began to die ; we must put out the 
Laws as I put out this candle. 

^Jle puts out the candle with an extin- 
guisher^ still holding the houghs 
with his left hand. Two Ortho- 
dox Friars ha^e come in. 
First Orthodox Friar. You had 
better go for the Superior. 

Second Orthodox Friar. I must 
stop and listen. 

\The First Orthodox Friar listens 
for a ini7iute or two a/»id then 
goes out. 
Paul Ruttlbdgb. And when they 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 159 

had lived amidst the green Earth that 
is the Love of God, they were some- 
times whetted by the rain, and some- 
times cold and hungry, and sometimes 
alone from one another; they thought 
it would be better to be comfortable 
than to be blessed. They began to 
build big houses and big towns. They 
grew wealth}^ and they sat chattering 
at their doors ; and the embrace that 
was to have been eternal ended, lips 
and hands were parted. ^He lets the 
houghs slip out of his a/rms^ We must 
put out the towns as I put out this 
candle. \Puts out another candle 

A Friapw. Yes, yes, we must uproot 
the towns. 



160 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Paul Ruttledge. But that is not 
all, for man created a worse thing, yes, 
a worse defiance against God. ^The 
Friars groanj God put holiness into 
everything that lives, for everything 
that desires is full of His Will, and 
everything that is beautiful is full of 
His Love ; but man grew timid because 
it had been hard to find his way 
amongst so much holiness, and though 
God had made all time holy, man said 
that only the day on which God rested 
from life was holy, and though God 
had made all places holy, man said, 
" no place but this place that I put 
pillars and walls about is holy, this 
place where I rest from life";.. and in 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 161 

this and like ways he built up the 
Church. We must destroy the Church, 
we must put it out as I put out this 
candle. l^Puts out another cmidle 

Friars ^clasping oiie another'' s hands\. 
He is right, he is right. The Church 
must be destroyed. 

\The Superior comes in 

First Friar. Here is the Superior. 

A Friar. He has been saying — 

Superior. Hush ! I will hear him 
to the end. 

Paul Ruttledge. That is not all. 
These things may be accomplished and 
yet nothing be accomplished. The 
Christian's business is not reformation 
but revelation, and the only labours he 



162 WHERE TUEliE IS NOTHING 

can put his hand to can never be ac- 
complished in Time. He must so live 
that all things shall pass away. ^He 
sto/tids silent for a raoment and then cries^ 
lifting his hand above his headl Give 
me wine out of thy pitchers ; oh, God, 
how splendid is my cup of drunken- 
ness ! We must become blind, and 
deaf, and dizzy. We must get rid of 
everything that is not measureless eter- 
nal life. We must put out hope as I 
put out this candle. ^Puts out a can- 
dle'j And memory as I put out this 
candle. [As before^ And thought, the 
waster of Life, as I put out this can- 
dle. [As beforel^ And at last we must 
put out the light of the Sun and of 



WHEBE THERE IS NOTHING 163 

the Moon, and all the light of the 
World and the World itself. [ZTe now 
puts out the last candle, the chapel is very 
dark. The only light is the faint light, 
of morning coming through the window\ 
We must destroy the World ; we must 
destroy everything that has Law and 
Number, for where there is nothing, 
there is God. 

[7%6 Superior comes forward. One 

of Paul's Friars mahes as if 

.to speak to him. The Superior 

strikes at him with the hack of 

his hcmd. 

Superior \to Paul Ruttledge]. Get 

out of this, rebel, blasphemous rebel ! 

Paul Ruttledge, Do as you like 



164 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

to me, but you cannot silence my 
thoughts. I learned them from Jesus 
Christ, who made a terrible joy, and 
sent it to overturn governments, and 
all settled order. 

[Paul's Friars rush to scwe him 
from the Superior. 

Paul Ruttledge. There is no need 
for violence. I am ready to go. 

CoLMAN faking his hand^. I w^ill go 
with you. 

Aloysius. I will go with you too. 

Several other Friars. And I, and 
I, and I. 

Superior. Whoever goes with this 
heretic goes straight into the pit. 

Bartley. Do not leave us behind 
you. Let us go with you. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 165 

CoLMAN. Teach us I teach us ! we 
will help you to teach others. 

Paul Ruttledge. Let me go alone, 
the one more, the one nearer falsehood. 

Bartley. We will go with you ! 
We will go with you ! We must go 
where we can hear your voice. 

A Friar ^who stands behind the 
Superior]. God is making him speak 
against himself. 

Paul Ruttledge. No, the time has 
not come for you. You would be 
thinking of your food at midday and 
listening for the bells at prayer time. 
You have not yet heard the voices and 
seen the faces. 

Superior. A miracle ! God is mak- 



166 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

ing the heretic speak against himself. 
Listen to him ! 

Aloysius. We will not stay behind, 
we will go with you. 

Bartley. We cannot live without 
hearing you ! 

Paul Ruttledge. I am led by 
hands that are colder than ice and 
harder than diamonds. They will lead 
me where there will be hard thoughts 
of me in the hearts of all that love 
me, and there will be a fire in my 
heart that will make it as bare as the 
wilderness. 

Aloysius. We will go with you. We 
too will take those hands that are colder 
than ice and harder than diamonds. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 167 

Several Monks. We too ! we too ! 
Patrick. Bring us to the hands 
that are colder than ice and harder 
than diamonds. 

Other Monks. Pull them away ! 
pull them away from him ! 

\They a/re about to seize the Monks 

who are with Paul Ruttledge 

Superior ^going hetween thein\. Back ! 

back ! I will have no scuffling here. 

Let the devil take his children if he 

has a mind to. God will call His own. 

\The Monks fall hack. Superior 

goes up to altar, takes the cross 

from it a/nd turns, standing on 

the steps. 

Superior. Father Aloysius, come to 



168 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

me here. [Aloysius takes Paul Rutt- 
ledge's hand^ Father Bartley, Father 
Cohnan. [They go nearer to Paul 
Ruttledge] Father Patrick ! [J. Friar 
comes towaixis him~^ Kneel down ! [Fa- 
ther Patrick kneels~\ Father Clement, 
Father Nestor, Father James . . , leave 
the heretic — you are on the very edge 
of the pit. Your shoes are growing 
red hot. 

A Friar. I am afraid, I am afraid. 

[ He kneels 

Superior. Kneel down ; return to 
your God. ^Several Monks kneel 

CoLMAN. They have deserted us. 

Paul Ruttledge. Many will forsake 
the truth before the world is pulled 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 169 

down. rStretching out his arms over his 
head'\ I pulled down my own house, 
now I go out to pull down the world. 

Superior. Strip off those holy 
habits. 

Paul Ruttledge ^taking off his hahit]. 
One by one I am plucking off the rags 
and tatters of the world. 



Curtain 



ACT V 

Scene : Smooth level grass near the Shan- 
non. Ecclesiastical ruins, a part of 
which have been roofed in. Rocky 
plain in the distance, with a river. 
Father Colman sorting some bundles 
of osiers. 
Aloysius enters with an empty bag. 

Colman. You are the first to come 
back, Aloysius. Where is Brother Bartley ? 

Aloysius. He parted from me at the 
cross roads and went on to preach at 
Shanaglish. He should soon be back now. 
170 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 171 

CoLMAN. Have you anything in the 
bag? 

Aloysius. Nothing. \_Throws the hag 
dowTij It does n't seem as if our luck 
was growing. We have but food 
enough to last till to-morrow. We 
have hardly that. The rats from the 
river got at the few potatoes I gathered 
from the farmers at Lisheen last week, 
in the corner where they were. 

CoLMAN. This is the first day you 
got nothing at all. Maybe you did n't 
ask the right way. 

Aloysius. I asked for alms for the 
sake of the love of God. But the first 
place where I asked it, the man of 
the house was giving me a handful 



172 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

of meal, and the woman came and 
called out that we were serving the 
devil in the name of God, and she 
drove me from the door, 

CoLMAN. It is since the priests 
preached against us they say that. 
Did you go on to Lisheen ? They used 
always to treat us well there. 

Aloysius. I did, but I got on no 
better there. 

CoLMAN. That is a wonder, after 
the woman that had the jaundice being 
cured with prayers by Brother Paul. 

Aloysius. That 's just it. If he did 
cure her, they say the two best of her 
husband's bullocks died of the black- 
water the next day, and he was no 
way thankful to us after that. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 173 

CoLMAN. Did you try the houses 
along the bog road ? 

Aloysius. I did, and the children 
coming back from school called out 
after me and asked who was it 
did away with the widow Cloran's 
cow. 

CoLMAN. The widow Cloran's cow ? 

Aloysius. That was the cow that 
died after grazing in the ruins here. 

CoLMAN. If it did, it was because 
of an old boot it picked up and ate, 
and that never belonged to us. 

Aloysius. I wish we had something 
ourselves to eat. They should be sit- 
ting down to their dinner in the mon- 
astery now. They will be having a 



174 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

good dinner to-day to carry them over 
the fast to-morrow. 

CoLMAN. I am thinking sometimes, 
Brother Paul should give more thought 
to us than he does. It is all very 
well for him, he is so taken up with 
his thoughts and his visions he does n't 
know if he is full or fasting. 

Aloysius. He has such holy thoughts 
and visions no one would like to 
trouble him. He ought not to be in the 
world at all, or to do the world's work. 

CoLMAN. So long as he is in the 
world, he must give some thought to 
it. There must be something wrong in 
the way he is doing things now. I 
thought he would have had half Ireland 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 175 

with him by this time with his great 
preaching, but someway when he 
preaches to the people, they don't seem 
to mind him much. 

Aloysius. He is too far above them ; 
they have not education to understand 
him. 

CoLMAN. They understand me well 
enough when I give my mind to it. 
But it is harder to preach now than it 
was in the monastery. We had some- 
thing to offer then ; absolution here, 
and heaven after. 

Aloysius. Is n't it enough for them 
to hear that the kingdom of heaven is 
within them, and that if they do the 
right meditations — 



176 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

CoLMAN. What can poor people that 

have their own troubles on them get 

from a few words like that they hear 

at a cross road or a market, and the 

wind maybe blowing them away ? If 

we could gather them together now. 

. . . Look, Aloysius, at these sally rods ; 

I have a plan in my mind about them. 

rZTe has sttick some of the rods in 

the ground, and begins weaving 

others through them. 

Aloysius. Are you going to make 
baskets like you did in the monastery 
schools ? 

CoLMAN. We must make something if 
we are to live. But it is more than that 
I was thinking of ; we might coax some 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 177 

of the youngsters to come and learn the 
basket making ; it would make them 
take to us better if we could put them 
in the way of earning a few pence. 

Aloysius [taking up some of the osiers 
and beginning to twist them~^. That might 
be a good way to come at them ; they 
could work through the day, and at 
evening we could tell them how to re- 
peat the words till the light comes 
inside their heads. But would Paul 
think well of it? He is more for pull- 
ing down than building up. 

CoLMAN. When I explain it to him 
I am sure he will think well of it ; he 
can't go on for ever without anyone to 
listen to him. 



178 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Aloysius. I suppose not, and with 
no way of living. But I don't know, 
I 'm afraid he won't like it. 

CoLMAN. Hush ! Here he is coming. 

Aloysius. If one had a plan now 
for doing some destruction — 

CoLMAN. Hush ! don't you see there 
is somebody with him ? 

Paul Ruttledge comes m with Charlie 
Ward. 

Paul Ruttledge. This is Charlie 
Ward, my old friend. 

Aloysius. The Charlie Ward you 
lived on the roads with ? 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, when I went 
looking for the favour of my hard 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 179 

mother, Earth, he helped me. He is 
her good child and she loves him. 

CoLMAN, He is welcome. How did 
he find you out ? 

Paul Ruttledge, I don't know. 
How did you find me out, Charlie ? 

Charlie Ward. Oh, I did n't lose 
sight of you so much as you thought. I 
had to stop away from Gortmore a good 
while after we left you at the gate, but 
I sent Paddy Cockfight one time to get 
news, and he mended cans for the 
laundry of the monastery, and they told 
him you were well again, and a monk 
as good as the rest. But awhile ago I 
got word there was a monk had gone 
near to break up the whole monastery 



180 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

with his talk and his piety, and I said 
to myself, " That 's Paul ! " And then 
I heard there was a monk had been 
driven out for not keeping the rules, and 
I said to myself, " That 's Paul ! " And 
the other day when what 's left of us 
came to Athlone, I heard talk of some 
disfrocked monks that were upsetting 
the whole neighbourhood, and I said, 
" That 's Paul." To Sabina Silver I said 
that. "That merry chap Paul," I said. 

Paul Ruttledge. I 'm afraid you 
have a very bad opinion of me, Charlie. 
Well, maybe I earned it. 

Aloysius. You cannot know much of 
him if you have a bad opinion of him. 
He will be made a saint some day. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 181 

Charlie Ward. He will, if there 's 
such a thing as a saint of mischief. 

Paul Ruttlbdge. A saint of mis- 
chief ? Well, why not that as well as 
another ? He would upset all the bee- 
hives, he would throw them into the 
market-place. Sit down now, Charlie, 
and eat a bit with us. 

Colmak. You are welcome, indeed, 
to all we can give you, but we have not 
a bit of food that is worth offering you. 
Aloysius got nothing at all in the villages 
to-day. Brother Paul. The people are 
getting cross. 

Paul Ruttledge. Well, sit down, 
anyway. The country people liked me 
well enough once, there was no man 



182 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

they liked so much as myself when I 
gave them drink for nothing. Did n't 
they, Charlie ? 

Charlie Ward. Oh, that was a 
great time. They were lying thick 
about the roads. I '11 be thinking of it 
to my dying day. 

Paul Ruttlbdge. I have given them 
another kind of drink now. 

Charlie Ward. What sort of a 
drink is that? 

Paul Ruttledge. We have rolled a 
great barrel out of a cellar that is under 
the earth. We have rolled it right into 
the midst of them. \^Ile moves Ms hand 
ahout as if he were moving a harreV^ It 's 
heavy, and when they have drunk what 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 183 

is in it, I would like to see the man that 
would be their master. 

Charlie Ward. That would be a 
great drink, but I would n't be sure that 
you 're in earnest. 

Paul Ruttledge. Colman and Aloy- 
sius will tell you all about it. It was 
made in a good still, the barley was 
grown in a field that 's down under the 
earth. 

Charlie Ward. That 's likely 
enough. I often heard of places like 
that. 

Paul Ruttledge. And when they 
have drunk from my barrel, they will 
break open the door, they will put law 
and number under their two feet ; and 



184 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

they will have a hot palm and a cold 
palm, for they will put down the moon 
and the sun with their two hands. 

Charlie Ward. There 's no mistake 
but you 're the same Paul still ; nice and 
plain and simple, only for your hard 
talk. And what about the rheumatism ? 
It 's hardly got through that fit you had, 
and you don't look as if much hardship 
would agree with you now. 

Aloysius. He does not, indeed, and 
if he does n't kill himself one way he 
will another. Wait now till I tell you 
the way he is living. I don't think he 
tasted bit or sup to-day, and all he had 
last night was a couple of dry potatoes. 

Charlie Ward. Is that so ? \_Tahes 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 185 

Paul Ruttledge's anrij You have n't 
much more flesh on you than a crane 
in moonlight. They don't seem to have 
much notion of minding you here, you 
that v^ere reared soft. It would be bet- 
ter for you to come back to us ; bad as 
our lodging is, there 'd be a bit in the 
pot for you and Sabina to care you. 
It 's she would give you a good welcome. 
CoLMAN ^starting up^. We can mind 
him well enough here. I have a plan. 
We have n't been getting on the way 
we ought with the people. It 's no 
way to be getting on with people to 
be asking things of them always, they 
have no opinion at all of us seeing us 
the way we are. They have no notion 



186 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

of the respect they should show to 
Brother Paul, and the way all the 
Brothers used to be listening to his 
preaching, and the townspeople as well. 
And I, myself, the time I preached in 
Dublin — 

Aloysius. Yes, indeed, Paul, think of 
the great crowds used to come when 
you preached in the Abbey church, 
and all the money that was gathered 
that time of the Mission. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, I used to like 
once to see all the faces looking up at 
me. But now all that is gone from me. 
Now I think it is enough to be a wit- 
ness for the truth, and to think the 
thoughts I like. God will bring the 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 187 

people to me. He will make of my 
silence a great wind that will shatter 
the ships of the world. 

CoLMAN. That is all very well, but 
the people are not coming. 

Aloysius. And more than that, they 
are driving us away from their doors 
now, Paul. 

Charlie Ward, The way they do 
to us. But Paul was not born on the 
roads. ^Lights his pipe 

CoLMAN. It 's no use stopping wait- 
ing for a wind ; if we have anything to 
say that 's worth the people listening 
to, we must bring them to hear it one 
way or another. Now, it is what I was 
saying to Aloysius, we must begin teach- 



188 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

ing them to make things ; they never 
had the chance of any instruction of 
the sort here. 

Paul Ruttledge. To make things? 
This sort of things ? 

[Takes the half -made basket froni 
Colma/n. 

CoLMAN. Those and other things ; we 
got a good training in the old days. 
And we '11 get a grant from the Tech- 
nical Board. The Board pays up to 
four hundred pounds to some of its 
instructors. 

Paul Ruttledge. And then? 

Aloysius. Oh, then we '11 sell all 
the things we make. I 'm sure we '11 
get a market for them. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 189 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, I understand ; 
you will sell them. And what about 
the dividing of the money ? You will 
need to make laws about that. 

CoLMAN. Of course ; we will have 
to make rules, and to pay according to 
work. 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, we will grow 
quite rich in time. What are we to 
do then ? we can't go on living in this 
ruin ? 

CoLMAN. Of course not. We '11 
build workshops and houses for those 
who come to work from a distance, 
good houses, slated, not thatched. 

Paul Ruttledge [turning to Aloy- 
sius a7id Charlie Ward]. Yes, you 



190 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

see his plan. To gather the people to- 
gether, to build houses for them ; to 
make them rich too, and to keep their 
money safe. And the Kingdom of God 
too? What about that? 

CoLMAN. Oh, I 'm just coming to 
that. They will think so much more 
of our teaching when we have got them 
under our influence by other things. 
Of course we will teach them their 
meditations, and give them a regular 
religious life. We must settle out some 
little place for them to pray in — there 's 
a high gable over there where we could 
hang a bell — 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes, I under- 
stand. You would weave them to- 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 191 

gether like this ^wea/ves the osiers in and 
out], you would add one thing to 
another, laws and money and church 
and bells, till you had got everything 
back again that you have escaped from. 
But it is my business to tear things 
asunder like this }^tears pieces from the 
hasket'j, and this, and this — 

Aloysius. I told him you 'd never 
agree to it. He ought to have known 
that himself. 

CoLMAN. We must have something to 
offer the people. 

Paul Ruttledge. You say that be- 
cause you got nothing to-day. Aloysius 
has got nothing in his sack. [^Taki7ig 
sack and tur^iing it upside down^ It is 



192 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

quite empty. Every religious teacher 
before me has offered something to his 
followers, but I offer them nothing. 
\Plunging his arm, down into the saclc]^ 
My sack is quite empty. I will never 
dip my hand into nature's full sack of 
illusions ; I am tired of that old con- 
juring bag. 

\He walks up and down muttering 
Charlie Ward \to Colman]. You 
may as well give up trying to settle 
him down to anything. He was a 
tinker once, and he '11 be a tinker 
always ; he has got the wandering into 
his blood. Will you come back to the 
roads, Paul, to your old friends and to 
Sabina ? 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 193 

Paul Ruttledge ^sitting down beside 
him\. Ah, my old friends, they were 
very kind to me ; but these friends too 
are very kind to me. 

Charlie Ward. Well, come and see 
them anyway ; they '11 be glad to see 
you, those that are left of us. 

Paul Ruttledge. Those that are left 
of you ? Where are the others ? 

Charlie Ward. Some are dead, and 
some are jailed, and some are on the 
roads here and there. Sabina is with 
us always, and Johneen is a great hand 
with the tools now, but Tommy the 
Song — 

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, Tommy the 
Song, does he pray still ? He was be- 



194 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

ginning to pray. Did he ever get an 
answer ? 

Charlie Ward. Well, I don't know 
about an answer, but I believe lie 
heard something one night beside an 
old thorn tree, some sort of a voice 
it was. 

Paul Ruttledge. A voice ? What 
did it say to him ? Did he see any- 
thing ? We have learned too much, our 
minds are like troubled water — we get 
nothing but broken images. He who 
knew nothing may have seen all. Is 
he praying still ? 

Charlie Ward. If he is, it 's in Gal- 
way gaol he 's praying, with or without 
a thorn tree. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 195 

Paul Ruttledge. Did he tell no one 
what the voice said to him ? 

Charlie Ward. He did not, unless 
he might have told Johneen or some 
other one. 

Paul R.uttledge. I will go with you 
and see them. ^Gets np 

Colman [to Aloysius, with whom he 
has been whispering^. Take care, but if 
he goes back to his old friends, he '11 
stop with them and leave us. 

Aloysius [putting his hand on Paul 
Ruttledge's arm'^. Don't go. Brother 
Paul, till I talk to you awhile. 

Paul Ruttledge. Do you want 
me ? Well, Charlie, I will stay here, 
I won't go ; but bring all the rest to 



196 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

see me, I want to ask them about that 
vision. 

Charlie Ward. I '11 bring one of 
them, anyway. ^&it 

Aloysius. Brother Paul, it is what 
I am thinking ; now the tinkers have 
come back to you, you could begin to 
gather a sort of an army ; you can't 
fight your battle without an army. 
They could call to the other tinkers, 
and the tramps and the beggars, and 
the sieve-makers and all the wandering 
people. It would be a great army. 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, that would be 
a great army, a great wandering army. 

Aloysius. The people would be afraid 
to refuse us then ; we would march on — 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 197 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, we could march 
on. We could march on the towns, and 
we could break up all settled order ; 
we could bring back the old joyful, 
dangerous, individual life. We would 
have banners, we would each have a 
banner, banners with angels upon them 
— we will march upon the world with 
banners — 

CoLMAN. We would not be in want 
of food then, we could take all we 
wanted. 

Aloysius. We could take all we 
wanted, we would be too many to put 
in gaol ; all the people would join us 
in the end ; you would be able to per- 
suade them all. Brother Paul, you 



198 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

would be their leader ; we would make 
great stores of food — 

Paul Ruttledge. We will have one 
great banner that will go in front, it 
will take two men to carry it, and on 
it we will have Laughter, with his 
iron claws and his wings of brass and 
his eyes like sapphires — 

Aloysius. That will be the banner 
for the front, we will have different 
troops, we will have captains to organ- 
ize them, to give them orders — 

Paul Ruttledge ^standing uj}J. To 
organize ? That is to bring in law 
and number ? Organize — organize — 
that is how all the mischief has been 
done. I was forgetting, we cannot 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 199 

destroy the world with armies, it is 
inside our minds that it must be de- 
stroyed, it must be consumed in a 
moment inside our minds. God will 
accomplish his last judgment, first in 
one man's mind and then in another. 
He is always planning last judgments. 
And yet it takes a long time, and that 
is why he laments in the wind and in 
the reeds and in the cries of the curlews. 

CoLMAN. I think we had better go 
down to the river and see are there any 
eels on the lines we set. We must find 
something for supper. It is near sun- 
set ; see how the crows are flying home. 

Paul Ruttledge [looking up^. The 
crows are my darlings ! I like their 



200 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

harsh merriment better than those sad 
cries of the wind and the rushes. 
Look at them, they are tossing about 
like witches, tossing about on the 
wind, drunk with the wind. 

CoLMAN. Well, I '11 go look at the 
lines, anyhow. Put turf on the fire, 
Aloysius ; Bartley should soon be home 
from Shanaglish. 

Aloysius. I wonder why he is n't 
home by this. I 'm uneasy till I see 
him, after the way the people treated 
me to-day. ^Shades his eyes to look out^ 
Here he is ! He 's running ! 

CoLMAN [coming over to TiimA^. He is 
running hard ! He must be in some 
danger — 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 201 

Enter Bartley out of breath. 

Baktley. Run, run, come away, 
there 's not a minute to lose. 

CoLMAN. What is the matter? what 
has happened ? 

Bartley. The people are coming up 
the road ! They attacked me in the 
market ! They followed me, they are 
on the road. I slipped away across the 
fields. Run, run ! 

CoLMAN. What is it? What are 
they going to do to us ? 

Bartley. You would know that if 
you saw them ! They have stones and 
sticks. Raging they are, and calling 
for our lives. They say we brought 
witchcraft and ill-luck on the place ! 



202 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Come to the boat, it 's in the rushes ; 
they won't see us, we '11 get to the 
island. Hurry, hurry ! ^Jle runs out 

Aloysius. Come, Brother Paul, hurry, 
hurry ! 

Paul Ruttledge. I am going to stay. 

CoLMAN, They will kill us if we 
stay ! Brother Bartley said they have 
stones and sticks ; I think I hear 
them ! 

Paul Ruttledge, You are afraid 
because you have been shut up so long. 
I am not afraid because I have lived 
upon the roads, where one is ready for 
anything that may happen. One has 
to learn that, like any other thing. I 
will stay. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 203 

Aloysius. He wants the crown ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Where is Hartley ? 

CoLMAN. He is gone. Come, you 
must go too, we can't leave you here. 
You have too much to do to throw 
your life away, we have all too much 
to do. 

Paul Ruttledge. No, no. There is 
nothing to do ; I am going to stay. 

Aloysius. I will stay with you. 

^Takes his hand 

Paul Ruttledge. Death is the last 
adventure, the first perfect joy, for at 
death the soul comes into possession of 
itself, and returns to the joy that 
made it. ^A great shout outside 

Colman ^seizing Aloysius]. Come, 



204 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

come, Aloysius ! come, Paul ! We 
have n't a moment, here they are. 

[Drags Aloysius away 

Paul Ruttledge. Good-by, Aloy- 
sius, good-by, Colman. Keep a pick 
going at the foundations of the world. 
[Colman and Aloysius run on 

One of the Mob outside. They are 
here in the ruins ! 

Another Voice. This way ! This 
way ! 

Paul Ruttledge. I will not go. I 
have a little reason for staying, but no 
reason is too little to be the foundation 
of martyrdom. People have been mar- 
tyred for all kinds of reasons, and my 
reason that is not worth a rush will 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 205 

do as well as any other. \_ZooIcs round'j 
Ah ! they are gone. A little reason, a 
little reason. I have entered into the 
second freedom — the irresponsibility of 
the saints. 

Sings 
Parasti in conspectu meo mensam 
Adversus eos qui tribulant me. 
Impinguasti in oleo caput meum, 
Et calix mens inebrians quam prae- 
clarus est. 
[People rush in with sticks uplifted 

One of the Mob. Where are the 
heretics ? 

Another. We '11 make an end of 
their witchcraft ! 

Another. Here is the worst of them ! 



206 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Another. Give me back my cattle 
you put the sickness on ! 

Another. We '11 have no witchcraft 
here ! Drive away the unfrocked priest ! 

Another. Make an end of him when 
we have the chance ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, make an end 
of me. I have tried hard to live a 
good life ; give me a good death now. 

One of the Crowd. Quick, don't 
give him time to put the evil eye on us ! 
^They rush at hhn. His hands are seen 
swaying about above the crowd. 

Paul Ruttledge. I go to the in- 
visible heart of flame ! 

One op the Crowd. Throw him 
there now ! Where are the others ? 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 207 

Another. They must be among the 
rocks. 

Another. They are not ; they are 
gone down the road ! 

Another. I tell you it 's in the rocks 

they are ! It 's in the rocks they 're hiding. 

Another. They are not ; they 

could n't run in the rocks ; they 're 

running down the road. 

Several Voices. They 're on the 
road ; they 're on the road. 

rT/iei/ all rush out, leaving Paul 
RuTTLEDGE It/i'fig on the ground. 
It grows darher. Father Col- 
man a7id Aloysius creep up. 
CoLMAN. Paul, Paul, come ; we have 
still time to get to the boat. 



208 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Aloysius. Oh ! they have killed 
him ; there is a wound in his neck ! 
Oh ! he has been the first of us to get 
the crown ! 

CoLMAN. There are voices ! They 
must be coming back ! Come to the 
boat, maybe we can bury him to- 
morrow ! 

l^They go out. Paul Ruttledge half 
rises and sinks hack. 
Enter Charlie Ward a/nd Sabina 
Silver. 

Charlie Ward. They have done for 
him. I thought they would. 

Sabina Silver. Oh, Paul, I never 
thought to find you like this ! He 's 
not dead ; he '11 come round yet. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 209 

Charlie Ward ^opens Ms shwt and 
puts in his hand on his hearty. Paul ! 

Paul Ruttledge. Ah ! Charlie, give 
me the soldering iron — no, bring me the 
lap anvil — I 'm as good a tinker as 
any of you. 

Charlie Ward. He thinks he 's back 
on the roads w^ith us ! He is done for. 

Sabina Silver. I knew he 'd have 
to come back to me to die after all ; 
it 's a lonesome thing to die among 
strangers. 

Paul Ruttledge. That is right, that 
is right, take me up in your brazen 
clav^s. But no — no — I w^ill not go 
out beyond Saturn into the dark. 
Take me down - — down to that field 



210 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

under the earth, under the roots of 
the grave. 

Sabina Silver. I don't know what 
he is saying. I never could under- 
stand his talk. 

Paul Ruttledge. O plunge me into 
the wine-barrel, into the wine-barrel 
of God. 

Sabina Silver. Won't you speak 
to me, Paul ? Don't you know me ? 
I am Sibby ; don't you remember me, 
Sibby, your wife ? 

Charlie Ward. He sees you now ; 
I think he knows you. 

[Paul Ruttledge has raised him- 
self on his elbow and is loohing 
at Sabina Silver. 



WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 211 

Sabina Silver. He knows me. I 
was sure he would know me. 

Paul Ruttledge. Colman, Colman, 
remember always where there is noth- 
ing there is God. fHe sinks down again 

One of the Crowd ^co7ning hack 
with two or three others^. I knew they 
must be in the rocks. 

Charlie Ward. Well, he 's gone ! 
There '11 soon be none of us left at all. 
And I never knew what it was he 
did that brought him to us. 

Sabina Silver. Oh, Paul, Paul ! 
\JBegins to keen 'very low, swaying 
herself to and fro. 

One of the Crowd ^to Charlie 
Ward]. Was he a friend of yours ? 



212 WHERE THERE IS NOTHING 

Charlie Ward. He was, indeed. I 
must do what I can for him now. 

One of the Crowd. That 's nat- 
ural, that 's natural. It 's a pity they 
did it. They 'd best have left him 
alone. We 'd best be going back to 
the town. 

[Sabina Silver raises the Tceen 
louder. The Strangers and Char- 
lie Ward take off their hats. 



THE END 



ULYSSES 

cA "DRAMA IN A TROLOGUE AND THREE ACTS 

By STEPHEN PHILLIPS 

Author of " Paola and Francesca^'' " Herod,'''' etc., etc. 

Cloth. i2nio. $1.25 net 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



BETHLEHEM 

A NATIVITY "PLAY 

By LAURENCE HOUSMAN 

Performed with music by Joseph Moorat, under the stage 
direction of Edward Gordon Craig, December, igoz 

Cloth. i2mo. $1.25 net 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



i56 



THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS 
H Comedy 

By PERCY MacKAYE 

Qoth t2Tno $t,25, net 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
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